Along the Essequebo and Potaro. 121 



Essequebo, was unusually low, rendering our travelling 

 tedious in the extreme. In the Essequebo, in particular, 

 sandbanks ran in nearly every direction, up and across 

 the river; and we spent hour after hour crossing and 

 recrossing at intervals, following channels that would 

 allow a passage for the boat, during which times but little 

 progress could be made. Nor, indeed, could the collec- 

 tion of specimens prosper, since two or three species of 

 swallows, gulls, and sand-pipers, were the only denizens 

 of these sand reaches. 



At Tumatamari, where, about eight miles up the 

 Potaro, a great dyke of greenstone runs across the 

 river, forming a cataract of about twenty feet in height, 

 the view is, as all lovers of nature who visit it must 

 experience, almost a perfect vision of delight. The 

 river, broken up into two chief channels bv a tree-clad 

 rocky island, tumbles, almost precipitously on the con- 

 spicuous northern side, down a rough mass of dark 

 rocks, curtained at either extremity bv the great arch 

 of the forest, rising higher in the background; while 

 the immediate foreground of still water, Hanked by 

 banks of golden sand at the edge of the forest, is sur- 

 mounted by a perfectly pi£turesque grouping of sand 

 below, and rock and tree above, opening out into a deep 

 valley on the southern side. Small clumps of narrow- 

 leaved shrubs densely covered with white and pink bloom, 

 and dotted here and there among the bare rocks, gave 

 an additional charm to the picture. 



Here, for the first time, pacu (Myletes asterias) were 

 obtained, a large female being shot by SCHOMBURGK, the 

 captain, who was most expert with the bow and arrow — 

 evidently to the surprise of a Partamona Indian, who 



