A Journey to Mount Russell. 217 
months before our visit, it seems yet half covered by a 
certain mysterious and romantic veil. 
The Pomeroon, about fifty miles from the sea, is formed 
by the union of two considerable and nearly equal 
branches, of which the one flowing most from the west is 
the Pomeroon proper, the other is the Issororo. Seaward 
from this junction the river is inhabited by Indians of 
various tribes ; but of the separate streams, the Pomeroon 
proper is inhabited only by Caribs (True Caribs), the 
Issororo only by Ackawois. 
The Issororo is navigable for, at the most, four or five 
hours' journey above its junction with the Pomeroon, 
and even so far is navigable only by free expenditure of 
labour with axe and cutlass, and by sometimes hauling the 
canoe, if of any size, on dry land past certain obstacles, 
and by sometimes lifting it bodily over others which lie 
across the stream. Yet notwithstanding these difficulties, 
a few Ackawois live scattered up to the limit of naviga- 
tion, and a few others, yet more remote, live in houses to 
be reached only walking for hours, along barely marked 
paths, far into the forest. And of all the Indians who 
choose to live in such curiously secluded places our 
missing guide, DANIEL, lives furthest from civilization, on 
the very border of the district which had been avoided 
and untrodden by man until visited by the discoverer of 
Mount Russell. To this explorer DANIEL had acted as 
guide ; and on the one occasion on which the mountain 
had been visited between its discovery and our visit, 
Daniel had again acted in the same capacity. And 
this same DANIEL, who was on a visit at a place a 
little lower down the Pomeroon than my house, had now 
