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Notes on a Journey to a portion of the Cuyuni 
Gold Mining District. 
By Harry I. Perkins, F.R.G.S., M. Inst. M.M. 
|EING the river on whose banks the first serious 
attempts at gold mining were made during the 
4} present century, the Cuyuni should hold, if 
only from a sentimental point of view, the first place in 
the minds of all successful gold-diggers in this Colony. 
It has long been known as amongst the most dan- 
gerous, if not tke most dangerous, of all the larger rivers 
of British Guiana, and there are times when the height 
of its waters, either above o- below a certain point, gives 
it every right to claim this unenviable notoriety. My 
first experience of it was a highly unpleasant one in 
1887, when, with a brother surveyor, I spent about four 
weeks journeying up and down a portion of it, and 
surveying placer claims on its right bank. On this 
memorable occasion we lost two boat-hands from dysen- 
tery a third dying on his return to Georgetown from the 
same disorder, and last but not least, in coming down 
stream our boat capsized at the Accaio—the lowest fall 
in the river—where one man was drowned and every- 
thing was lost, except some heavy iron brands and 
surveying chains, which had become firmly wedged 
under the ribbons of the boat, and which were recovered 
when it was picked up. The Government however, very 
generously made good the losses sustained by ourselves 
and the boatmen; and we had therefore not much 
to deplore beyond the unpleasant feeling of having 
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