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where the rivers are the only highways. 
Like most of the men [I met there, Mr. 
Goring, the manager of Sproston’s, was 
willing to do anything he could to help 
me. He was skeptical, but promised to 
write to his agent on the Potaro and ask 
if there was any one there who would 
take me to Kaieteur Fall. This he im- 
mediately did; but things go slowly on 
the frontier, and it was more than a 
week before he received an answer. 
Meanwhile I had a chance to become 
acquainted with Georgetown. It is a 
comfortable place, kept cool by the 
steady trade winds and well governed, 
as British colonies are. The streets are 
wide, and through the center of many 
are canals filled with enormous Victoria 
Regia water lilies. Back from the street, 
and usually behind a row of stately 
palms, are the peculiar “peek-a-boo” 
houses. ‘The only familiar edifice was a 
Carnegie library of the standard type. 
The rest of the buildings were usually 
of wood—of pine, by the way, from our 
Northern forests—and raised high on 
piles, for the whole city is below the 
level of the sea and a ground floor would 
be unhealthful for habitation. Beside 
almost every house is a cistern, into 
which the rain-water from the roof is 
drained. This provides the only source 
of pure water, but so regular are the 
rains that there is never a moment of 
worry about the supply. 
The people are without doubt the most 
interesting sight in Georgetown. There 
are as many types as there are illustra- 
tions in a text-book on anthropology. 
African negroes, coolies from India, 
Portuguese, Chinamen, native Indians, 
and the English form the constituent 
parts. Intermarriage has complicated 
matters, so that types of faces, dress, 
and even religions have increased by 
geometrical progression into a hopelessly 
intricate sociological mess. I met one 
lady of good social standing who was a 
Dutch negro Jewess, while a coal-black 
Chinaman with curly yellow hair walked 
in the streets unnoticed but by me. It 
was most amusing to hear these various 
types talking to one another in the 
broadest London accent. 
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 
Even the monetary system is a half- 
breed affair. Prices are quoted in Ameri- 
can dollars, yet the coins are English 
and a shilling is 24 cents. There are 
colonial bank notes marked $5, though 
worth only a pound, and there are silver 
four-penny pieces descended from the 
old Dutch “bit”. 
The town itself does not wear well, 
for the amusements are few. ‘The bo- 
tanical garden is said to be one of the 
most beautiful in the world, just as simi- 
lar gardens in Java and Ceylon claim the 
distinction. A drive is interesting along 
the old sea-wall, which was built by the 
Dutch when they settled there and the 
British were in possession of what is 
now Dutch Guiana. 
I was glad when an answer finally 
came from Mr. Goring’s inquiry. An 
Indian named William Grant was ready 
with a crew of six men to take me from 
Potaro Landing to the fall. I was sur- 
prised at the name “William Grant,” but 
I later learned that the Indians have sev- 
eral sets of names, graded according to 
intimacy. ‘lo tell a white man their 
native names would be to give him power 
to call down the devil on their fortunes. 
I arranged to close the contract with 
Grant at once, and began to make my 
preparations for the trip. It rains pretty 
much all the year round in Guiana, very 
hard and very suddenly, so that several 
changes of clothes are essential. Like- 
wise I had to carry 10 days’ provisions 
and all the necessities for sleeping in the 
bush. It was no easy matter to judge of 
the right things for such a trip, and I 
constantly turned to experienced advice. 
Woolens, for example, do not sound 
logical within a few degrees of the equa- 
tor, but fortunately I was persuaded to 
wear them. They absorb the moisture 
both from within and without, and so 
prevent the chills that are usually fol- 
lowed by malaria, where that disease is 
always in the air. It is never insuffer- 
ably hot in Guiana; in fact, very rarely 
even uncomfortably so, if one avoids 
violent exercise. All the year the tem- 
perature stays about the same, and I 
must admit that for a short visit the cli- 
