^00 A NATURALIST IN THE GUIANAS 



On the day after our arrival Jacobson and I went with 

 Pancho in the small boat as far into the main gorge as 

 we could with safety. We landed on an immense mass 

 of rock up whose slippery sides we clambered. From 

 this spot we had a splendid view along the defile. Huge 

 fragments of rock like the one we were standing on form 

 the bed of the gorge. These fragments are of a shining 

 black colour, and smooth and slippery, looking as if they 

 had been polished with plumbago. With a continuous 

 dull roar like the rumbling of thunder the water dashes 

 down the defile, hurling itself against the masses of rock 

 and breaking in foam over them. Jacobson took several 

 views of the gorge, after which we returned to our camp. 

 I noticed on the way many logs of from four to five feet 

 in length, with their ends as regularly rounded as if they 

 had been cut with some sharp instrument. In their 

 passage down the gorge they had been ground against the 

 rocks into this regular shape. We used some of these 

 logs as rollers when we hauled the boats over the stretch 

 of sand to the foot of the hill. 



During the first three days after our arrival the men 

 were occupied cutting a track through the dense forest 

 which clothes the island up to the river above. On the 

 morning of March 5 the tedious operation of hauling the 

 boats overland was begun. We had two large boats, 

 much of the same size, and a small one. Of the larger 

 boats one was exceedingly heavy, having been dug out of 

 very hard timber. The lighter of the larger boats was 

 the first carried over the stretch of sand to the foot of the 

 hill where the portage began. Then with a long stout rope 

 and a pair of double pulleys, one attached to the head of 

 the boat, the other to a tree some twenty or thirty yards 

 in front, the boat was slowly hauled up over round logs 



