The First Ascent of Roraima. 7 
of people, many of whom were at the moment 
occupied in a large building which they called a church, 
in singing, shouting and talking in curious attempt to 
imitate the service which some of them must have seen 
in the mission church on the Potaro. 
Yet another day's walking brought us to Konkarmo, the 
village of our guides. From it the promised distant view 
of Roraima was indicated to us ; but the mountain, if 
really visible, was so distant as to be discernible rather by 
the eye of faith than of the body. 
Since we had left the forest, and this is equally true 
of our onward journey from Kankarmo to Roraima, the 
path, leading for the most part along the crests of long 
ranges of savannah mountains, was, in its circum- 
stance of scenery, of probably unsurpassable magnifi- 
cence ; but it led often up or down most precipitous 
mountain sides and always over ground very rough and 
very stony. Our Indians, who, coming unto those rough 
places from the plain of the Pomeroon, where the 
almost universal mud is soft to the feet of the walker, 
and where, moreover, the denseness of the forest and 
the wide-spread net-work of river and stream cause al- 
most all travel to be done by boat, were totally unused 
to carrying heavy burdens for long distances and 
still less used to walking over stony ground, were 
so knocked up by the time we reached Konkarmo 
that it was evidently out of the question to send 
them back for the baggage left at Chinebowie. 
However we found no difficulty in getting a suf- 
ficient number of Indians to go back from Konkarmo ; 
and these, in the wonderfully short space of a week, 
returned with all that we required. 
