Читать книгу Through British Guiana to the summit of Roraima онлайн

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But the day of motor-roads into the interior has not yet come, and we reached Rockstone on our journey to Roraima by railway from Wismar. At Rockstone the great width of the Essequebo is disguised, as almost everywhere else, by islands; for immediately opposite the railway terminus is Gluck Island, fully seven miles long, in whose marshy jungle the Victoria Regia lily was originally found. Apart from the railway-station, the only other building there is a pleasant little bungalow hotel, in which we spent the night. The full moon over the Essequebo was very pretty.

We started upstream from Rockstone at 6.30 a.m. on the 21st December, 1915, and arranged ourselves for a long day’s occupation of the Ark, a primitive sort of house-boat, towed alongside the motor-launch which plies regularly, when the state of the river permits, between Rockstone and Tumatumari. The launch was a terribly noisy affair, and even in the dignified seclusion of our Ark we could not hear ourselves speak. However, once comfortably established in hammocks, we could lose ourselves in our books. One of the most important parts of an outfit for a bush journey, and certainly one that requires very careful thought, is the choice of one’s library; for who would dream of starting, like Musset’s Ninon, “en voyage sans livre”? You want, first of all, books that contain a good deal of reading matter in them, so that you may not run through the pages too quickly; and the more they afford of piquant contrast to the surroundings you are likely to encounter, the better; whilst an enduring charm will be thrown for you over any favourite work which has accompanied you across hill and dale and cheered hours of weary waiting in the rain, or of provoking delays on the part of the food commissariat. Sir George Trevelyan’s Life and Letters of that most delightful of men, Lord Macaulay, Macaulay’s Essays, Kim and Vanity Fair, have all acquired for me a peculiar and indescribable flavour, since this or that passage recalls some incident of travel or lazy hammock hours in river and forest, when, as supper was a-preparing or the pit-pat of rain beat on our tent-roof, I lay luxuriating in the delightfulness of freshly-donned, dry footgear and in the anticipation of “pigtail soup.”