56 



MEMOIRS OF THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM 



can be seen in the distance, toward the south, when the view is not obstructed 

 by trees. 



The fauna of the Essequibo becomes attenuated as we go up the Potaro. Its 

 upper course below the fall undoubtedly contains intrusives from the plateau which 

 decrease in number as one gets further and further from the Kaieteur. 



At Tumatumari I boarded the launch, taking with me a negro, Mr. Cum- 

 mings, with a bateau. We landed at the head of an island a short distance below 

 the mouth of the Potaro and just above Crab Falls. There was an Indian settle- 

 ment here. We slung our hammocks under the shelter of one of their huts. My 



WIDTH 552ft 



600 FT WIDTH 369 FT 



1320 FT 



^•822 FT 



Fig. 22. Diagrammatic representation of the contour of the Kaieteur Falls. (After Brown.) 



own hammock, that of Mr. Cummings, and that of an Indian woman radiated 

 from the same center pole, at the base of which a monkey was tied, — a cosmopolitan 

 quartet. Cummings and the Indians went out with the net at night to fish on the 

 sandbanks. I remained in my hammock to recuperate from the fever. On the 

 fifth I sent several of the Indians out to dig hiari roots while I fished about the rocks 

 of Crab Falls. The Essequibo is very wide at this point, divided by an island, and 

 falls over a dike running squarely across the river just after it has made a turn. 



On the sixth, Cummings, myself, and four Indians went with the bateau up 

 the Essequibo to shoot pacu at the Warraputa Cataract. Above the mouth of 

 the Potaro the Essequibo is broken by a large number of rocky islets, fragments 

 of a dike crossing the river. Other dikes cross the river further up, the water 

 rushing through the gaps. Through some of the gaps the Indians succeeded in 

 paddling the bateau, through others they dragged the boat after being driven back 

 several times by the current. 



A dike extends across the Essequibo near the mouth of the Konawaruk. 

 Opposite the Konawaruk and below the dike there is a lagoon separated from the 

 river by a sandy and partly wooded spit of land, but connected below with the 



