A VISIT TO THE KAIETEUR FALL. 
By Sir T. Crosstey Rayner, K.C., Arrorney GENERAL. 
Comparatively few people outside British Guiana have ever heard of the 
Kaieteur Fall, in spite of the fact that the Encyclopedia Britannica calls it the 
“ celebrated Kaieteur Fall,” and I must confess that I had never heard of it 
before I came to the colony. But from the time I first heard of it, I cherished 
a great desire to see it, but the opportunity did not come till September last 
year, when I made the visit of which I have been invited to give an account in 
the pages of ““ Timehri.” Although Kaieteur was discovered forty years ago, 
it is so inaccessible that not many more than fifty persons in all have ever seen 
it, and as not more than half a dozen of these have ever written any record of 
their visit, it is small wonder that the world at large knows so little of the scene 
of marvellous beauty locked up away in the innermost recesses of the only 
British possession in South America. 
The fall is one of the largest in the world having a clear drop of 741 feet and 
then 88 feet over a sloping rock at the bottom, or a total height of 829 feet, five 
times higher than Niagara, though not nearly so broad, being from 350 to 400 
feet wide, according to the season of the year. It is situated in the Potaro River, 
and is about 200 miles from Georgetown. The name * Kaieteur,” or more 
properly “Kaietuk” is an Indian word meaning “ Old Man Fall,” and the name 
is derived from the fact that formerly it was the custom of the Indians in that 
part of the country when their old people got too feeble to work and became a 
burden on the tribe, to put them in a canoe with some food and set them adrift 
on the river to go over the fall. 
The other members of the party with whom I went te Kaieteur were Mr. 
Fowler, the Commissioner of Lands and Mines, Mr. Buxton, the Governor's 
Private Secretary, and Mr. Wickham, the Warden of Potaro, who joined us at 
Tumatumari. We left Georgetown on Monday, the 12th of September, 1910, 
at 8 a.m., going by steamer up the Demerara River to Wismar, thence by rail 
across to Rockstone on the Essequebo, where we stayed the first night. As this 
part of the journey is well known, I will not weary my readers by describing it, 
suffice it to say we arrived at Rockstone about 6.15 after a very comfortable and 
pleasant journey, having traversed 73 miles of the distance to Kaieteur. 
Next morning, Tuesday, the 13th of September, at 6.30, we started on the 
second stage of our journey which was up the Essequebo to the mouth of the 
Potaro and thence eleven miles up the Potaro to Tumatumari. We travelled 
in Sprostons’ launch, or rather in the ‘‘ Ark,” a large flat boat, kindly placed 
at our disposal and towed alongside the launch. Rockstone is 73 miles from 
the sea, and at this part the Essequebo is nearly three miles wide and is 
covered with forest trees to the water's edge. For the first hour we were passing 
Gluck Island, an island seven miles long and from one to two miles broad, and 
it is on this island that the beautiful Victoria Regia lily is said to have been first 
discovered. There are some hundred of islands in the Essequebo in its course 
of over 600 miles, and we passed several in the course of the day. So wide is 
