174 Timehri. 



warranted large expenditure and even the carrying out of all the roads, 

 portages, etc , which had been planned in the various schemes put before 

 the public. 



The first steps he suggested were : — 



(1.) A road from the foot of the Ess^qui bo falls to the head of them. 

 This would serve instead of a railway from Bartica meantime, and would 

 involve only 10 miles of road instead of 30 miles of railway. 



(2.) Improvment of the portage of lower Mallali on the Demerara 

 river and a road from the Demerara to the Essequibo opposite Omai on 

 which a tramway could be laid. The total cost of this scheme would, he 

 estimated, be about £30,000 sterling. In event of no more gold being- 

 found the tramway plant could be removed to some other route. The 

 position of the road suggested was the Kumaparu path below the Great 

 Falls on the Demerara about 40 miles due south of the present Wismar 

 Railway, striking the Essequibo at a point within about 12 or 13 miles 

 of the Omai Creek, which would be reached by launch from the terminus 

 of the tramway. Mr. Tennant apparently preferred the Demerara in 

 preference to the Bartica route to the districts named. 



The final outcome of the 1892 Commission was the acceptance of 

 Messrs. Sprostons' offer to build a railway from Wismar on the Demerara 

 River to the Essequibo opposite Gluck Island, above the Monkey Jump 

 and Mayai rapids. A system of boats and launches running in connection 

 with this railway have since its completion given access to the lower 

 Potaro, Omai and Konawaruk. 



The Government advanced to the contractors $200,000 (£41,610 

 stg.), repayable without interest in 20 years, to assist in carrying out this 

 work. This sum has since been repaid to the Government. 



This railway has, as Mr. Hill remarks in his 1902 paper, " served and 

 is still serving a useful end," although at the expense of well-nigh ruining 

 the town of Bartica, which was designed by its natural geographical 

 position to be the '' jumping-oft ground/' so to speak, for the Essequibo, 

 Mazaruni and Cuyuni districts. The Demerara-Essequebo railway must, 

 however, rest content with its more or less evanescent life of usefulness 

 as an aid in getting to the Potaro district, pending the construction of 

 the great centi'al trunk line from Bartica ; as it seems to me like the 

 bolstering up of a bad case to attempt to make it a sort of cross-country 

 route to the Mazaruni diamonds fields through the Potaro and Courie- 

 brong rivers with a portage of some miles to the head-waters of the 

 Semang and down that stream into the Mazaruni as has been seriously 

 proposed." 



Mr. Hill urged against this route the repeated handling of goods 

 between Demerara and Mazaruni as follows : — 



" 2 at Wismar, 2 at Rockstone, 2 at Tumatumari Falls (low-side), 2 

 at Tumatumari (topside), 2 at Couriebrong head, 2 at Semang head, and 

 I at Semang mouth with possibly others at unknown falls and shallows, 7 ' 



