Information respecting Scientific Travellers, 199 



We passed next day the rapid Massiwinidui, and several others 

 of less consequence, and encamped in the evening at the foot of the 

 fall Aunama, from whence the path leads to the Cuyuni. The river 

 Aunama joins the Barama just below the fall. 



Our course on the 17th of July continued W.S.W. We crossed, 

 at ten o'olock in the morning, the Aunama for the last time ; and 

 having passed a ridge of small hills which stretched S. by W., we 

 stood soon after on the western branch of the rivulet Acarabisi. We 

 had now reached the most elevated spot between the Cuyuni and 

 Barama, and entered another system of rivers, the waters of which, 

 instead of flowing northwards to the Waini and Barama, run to the 

 S. ; and, uniting with the Cuyuni, are conveyed to the Atlantic by 

 the Essequibo. 



From this ridge of hills the ground slopes southward to the banks 

 of the Cuyuni ; and I estimated the highest ridge which separates 

 the two systems at 520 feet above the level of the sea. Heights 

 which really deserve the name of mountains commence twenty miles 

 further westward. The Aunama and Acarabisi are only divided 

 from each other by hillocks which rise not more than from sixty to 

 100 feet above their level. Both rivers, if properly cleared of trees 

 which have fallen across, would be navigable for canoes and punts ; 

 and as the portage is not more than two miles, these rivers present 

 the means of connecting the Pomeroon and Morocco coast with the 

 Upper Cuyuni, where the channel of that river is comparatively un- 

 obstructed. 



We followed the valley of the Acarabisi, by no means a comfort- 

 able path, as at this season of the year it formed an almost conti- 

 nued swamp, and we fell sometimes to our girths in the mud. A 

 rich retentive soil renders these regions peculiarly fit for the culti- 

 vation of rice. It rained almost incessantly, and we were truly re- 

 joiced when, on the morning of the 19th of July, we arrived at the 

 Caribisi settlement Haiowa, about two miles distant from the left 

 bank of the Cuyuni. The country between the Barama and the 

 Cuyuni is a series of narrow valleys, situated between hillocks of no 

 great height. The principal valleys are those which are drained by 

 the rivers Aunama and Acarabisi. The general direction of the others 

 is at an oblique angle to these, and they vary considerably in extent. 

 Sometimes they are merely defiles, and the greater number of 

 them do not expand more than about a quarter of a mile. I am 

 fully persuaded that there can be no soil better qualified for the cul- 

 tivation of coffee than what is found here. The zones of granite, 

 sometimes in spherical blocks, and the vitrified and ferruginous 

 masses of clay which I frequently observed traversing the moun- 

 tains, are favourable to the cultivation of that plant. 



The productiveness of the soil nearer to the banks of the Cuyuni 

 is evident from the specimens of sugar-cane, cotton, and plantains 

 which were brought to me while at Haiowa. I saw a cane mea- 

 suring 13 feet long, and 7^ inches in circumference. The cotton, 

 too, was of excellent quality and staple ; and the few tobacco -plants 



