854 
pany’s boats was supposed to be at the 
head of the portage, but no boat was to 
be found. Evidently some Indian with a 
grudge against the white man, or per- 
haps the flood of the river, had carried it 
over the rapids. On our return we found 
a shattered fragment down the stream. 
My first thought was that it would be 
possible to walk the remaining distance 
to Kaieteur; but Grant had seen me 
blundering across ‘he slippery saplings 
that bridged the frequent streams from 
Potaro to Kangarooma. He informed 
me that the Indians might do it, but for 
me it was impossible. Fortunately, he 
knew where two dugouts were, 10 miles 
up the stream and on the other side. So 
I sent four of the Indians in search of 
them, while the rest of us settled down 
as comfortably as possible to await their 
return. 
Unlike the negro, the Indian does not 
like to be idle. The three who remained 
with me at once set to work bleeding 
balata trees in the neighborhood of our 
camp. Balata is an inferior species of 
rubber and forms one of the chief ex- 
ports of the colony. In each tree several 
long slashes were made at angles run- 
ning into each other. A gourd was fixed 
at the bottom as a receptacle for the 
sum. In this way they gathered several 
pounds of the raw balata, which they 
presented to me. 
Not until the next morning did the 
Indians return. ‘There had been some 
hope. that they would find the large boat, 
but they came back with only the two 
dugouts, which they called “curyalls”. It 
was therefore necessary to leave a base 
at Waratuk and, with four of the In- 
dians and only necessities, cover the re- 
maining distance. 
We lost no time in starting. In the 
center of one of the unsteady little shells 
were placed a tarpaulin, a box of pro- 
visions, and the hammocks, while in the 
other I carefully seated myself. An 
Indian in the bow and stern of each had 
no trouble to make himself comfortable. 
By the time the shadow of my broad- 
brimmed hat formed a circle about my 
feet we were off. We managed the 
rapids beautifully in such shells, and our 
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 
speed was a great improvement over that 
of the clumsy boats we had been using. 
Before we had paddled 15 minutes we 
turned a bend in the river and Kaieteur 
appeared far in front of us, a narrow 
white dot against the green foliage and 
blue sky. 
From that point on the gorge through 
which the fall has cut its way during the 
ages opened up more clearly. Massive 
precipitous rocks rose out of the jungle 
beside us as sharply as the sides of a 
Norwegian fjord. Suggestive also of 
the Scandinavian fjords were the lace- 
like waterfalls that came tumbling down 
from these heights. 
It was a hard journey in our tiny boats 
through this imposing canyon to the 
rapids known as Tukeit. Here, through 
some freak of nature, there is a clearing 
by the side of the river, the first break 
in the forest I had seen since leaving 
Kangarooma, four days back. We easily 
knocked a temporary shelter into being 
and made ourselves at home for the 
night. It was a swampy home and 
smelled of malaria, but I took a double 
dose of quinine and slept well. 
The rain fell in torrents in the night 
and one of my Indians suffered from his 
exposure the next day. My only dis- 
comforture lay in the fact that I had left 
my cook at Waratuk. The Indians did 
their best to help me, but their cakes of 
plain flour and water made into a dough 
and very much under-cooked did not 
tempt me. I lived on cold corned beef 
from Chicago and Uneeda_ biscuits, 
washed down with muddy coffee and 
condensed milk. 
From Tukeit it is four miles in a 
straight line to Kaieteur, but the valley 
through which the river flows is quite 
impassable. Huge boulders block the 
way, and, as far as | know, no one has 
ever reached the bottom of the fall. Our 
route lay up the steep side of the gorge 
along a trail which I could not recognize 
as such, but which to the Indian is the 
highway to Brazil. With no idea of zig- 
zagging up the side of a mountain, the 
Indian has applied the principle that a 
straight line is the shortest path between 
two points, no matter what the angle. 
