18 Timehri. 
had now become very beautiful, the mountains closing in on each side, and being 
very precipitous, and in parts the bare face of the rock showed out among the 
trees, which seemed to grow wherever there was the smallest foothold. Many of 
these bare patches of rock looked like solid masonry, the illusion being helped 
by the strata of the sandstone, which is here the geological formation, showing 
out like courses of masonry, and it needed little imagination to see in fancy large 
medieval castles on the heights above us. In one place the illusion was almost 
startling for the bare rock came out in two semi-circular masses which looked 
like massive towers, while the cracks and weather-marks in its face looked like 
windows and loop-holes, and the illusion was further enhanced by a large 
cave, with a crust of flat rock over it, just below the towers which looked like 
the entrance to the castle. Another feature of the river was its absolute solitude, 
there was no village or hut and the only sign of human life we saw after 
we left Potaro landing were two Indians, an old man ‘and a boy, in a 
woodskin. 
About 3 o'clock we arrived at Tukait, the nearest point to which a boat can 
approach the fall, the river from that point being broken up by a series of 
impassable cataracts and rapids. Here we camped for the night. 
Next morning, Saturday, about 7 o’clock we started through the forest for the 
top of the fall. Four miles over a very rough undulating track which crosses 
two or three large streams brought us to the face of the tableland which towered 
almost perpendicularly above us and up which we had a long and weary climb, 
over rough stones, fallen trunks and tree roots from which the rain had washed 
away the soil. Near the top we came on to more or less level ground, and passed 
some enormous boulders, which, as the earth is gradually washed away, will some 
day roll to the bottom and help to make another cataract in the Potaro River. 
In three and a half hours we reached the top of the plateau which is quite flat 
and in parts is bare rock, with nothing but cactus growing in the crevices. 
There is, however. a thick belt of forest at the edge of the river, 
through which we made our way and suddenly we came out on the 
edge of the ravine with one of the most glorious sights in the world spread 
out. before us. Half a mile away Kaieteur rolled sheer over a precipice 
into a great semi-circular chasm, the bottom of the fall invisible in the 
clouds of spray, into which the water was broken by its long fall, while 
every now and then a cold blast of wind blowing up the ravine filled the 
chasm with mist which rose high above the top of the fall. Away behind it 
flowed the Potaro over the vast plateau between its forest-clad banks while far 
off in the distance could be seen the blue outline of another range of mountains 
stretching away into Brazil. 
Words fail to convey any idea of the almost awful grandeur of the scene. 
Nature is here seen in one of her most majestic moods, the absolute solitude, 
the intense stillness broken only by the sound of the falling water, produces upon 
the spectator a feeling akin to awe. 
After spending some time at this spot we made our way through the forest 
helt to the head of the fall where we spent the next twenty-four hours, camping 
for the night a short distance from the edge of it, 
