Читать книгу Through British Guiana to the summit of Roraima онлайн

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The township of Wismar on the Demerara River is the terminal point of the small piece of railway built in 1896 by Sprostons Limited to cross the divide, here less than nineteen miles wide, between the Demerara and Essequebo Rivers. Close to the railway-station, alongside which is a steamer wharf, cluster the police-station, post office, magistracy, and a few shops. The train is a little toy affair, very dirty; the engine burns wood fuel, and the sparks which fly from its funnel give as fine a display of fireworks after nightfall as one could wish to see. They are, however, somewhat dangerous. A case in point was the occasion when Princess Marie-Louise travelled over the line in 1914. The train had been specially decorated in her honour; but it had not proceeded more than half a mile from Wismar before the sparks set all the decorations on fire, and a halt was necessary in order to divest the passenger-coaches of all combustible embellishments.

Crossing the divide by motor-trolley is quite an agreeable experience, especially in the cool of the evening, and the line is seen to better advantage. The scenery, however, is disappointing. On the Essequebo side of the water-parting, Sprostons have considerable timber-cutting grants, to which they run branch lines. But near the main line all big trees have long ago been cut down, and some years ago a terrible forest fire swept down the divide, leaving behind it a desolation of stark and charred tree-trunks, unlovely to look at. The soil is a white sand, dazzling in the equatorial sunlight.