230 TlMEHRI. 
under the name of Kaieteur, it is perhaps better to retain 
this form. Apart from the Kaieteur and the inexpressible 
effect which it produces on the beholder, the outlook 
down the valley from the brow of the fall, or from 
the higher land I have just described, is, in my estima- 
tion of scenery, of unsurpassed grandeur. To this how- 
ever I can only allude, and must turn to the subject of 
the savannah and its flora; but having once seen it, 
it can never again be shut out of the beholder's eyes. 
The savannah, the flora of which I shall alone deal 
with here, though my labours on the occasion of my journey 
thither were not confined to it, has a nearly even sur- 
face, but with a slight decline toward the bed of the river ; 
and it is surrounded and well shut in on all but the valley 
outlet by dense, more or less, heavy forest. The out- 
lying region around, as far as the eye can reach, which 
from the south-eastern part, looking south and south- 
west, is very many miles in extent, has also similar heavy 
forest. The nearest open ground which the Indians 
appear acquainted with, they state to be four days' jour- 
ney on foot from the settlement of Chienabowa, which 
is two days' journey by canoe above the Kaieteur, on 
a rapid-flowing, unnavigable tributary of the Potaro, 
which gives its name to the settlement. Being thus 
isolated, it is not surprising that the flora of the 
Kaieteur Savannah is, to a large degree, of a peculiar 
and consequently interesting nature, compared with 
those of the larger savannahs of the colony, all of which 
possess broad features in common. 
Looking first at the soil and the underlying geological 
formation, on which (allowing for climatic conditions) 
