280 TIMEHRI. 
aspiration, together with the ability to give suitable scope 
to this aspiration, are among the rarest of rare qualities. 
During our four days walk from Konkarmo to the 
Potaro we entered and passed for the greater part of the 
way through the forest tra€t which lies between the 
mountains of the interior and the sea. We came out on 
the Potaro at a distance of about a day and a half’s boat 
journey above the great Kaieteur fall, which interrupts 
the navigation of that river, and just below which we 
expected to find our boat awaiting us. Where we joined 
the Potaro we expeéted to find a settlement, which had 
existed at the time of my last visit, and to get woodskins 
—the strips of natural tree-bark used by certain tribes 
of Redmen as boats. But we found the settlement 
abandoned, and could get no woodskins. It was from 
this point that my redskinned companions who had 
come with me so far were to leave me to return to the 
distant homes from which I had brought them; and as 
the next part of the journey to the Kaieteur, had, in the 
absence of any track through the forest, to be accom- 
plished somehow by river, the sadness of parting from 
those pleasant folks was to some extent mitigated by the 
thought that, there being at the moment no obvious 
way of providing craft to take even my own three more 
immediate companions and myself, it would at least be 
impossible to take the Macusis farther. A distribution 
of calico, knives, beads, powder, and other such treasures, 
satisfied my late assistants ; and these, apparently, with 
the exception of one or two of them, just as happy to 
leave us as to be with us, disappeared into the forest 
with the merriment of a party of children, And I was 
once more left with my three companions from thé coast 
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