(an extract from Schomburgk’s expedition to the interior. The work was translated from German by Walter E. Roth, Stipendiary Magistrate of the Demerara River District and author of several scholarly works, in 1920)
240. In company with my charming Cicerone I was soon able to extend the area of my excursions farther afield along the virgin forest through which practicable roads had been cut on all sides so as to establish regular communication between the different estates on the island.
241. What hours of innocent pleasure we spent together when, at low tide, engaged in mutually instructive conversation we rode along the beach now lapped with the waves and cooled in the breeze~ or when we turned into the half-obscured shady paths of the primeval land covered with trees~ and for minutes at a time watched the airy movements of the elflike Aernauta Nestor Anchyses phorbanta, Hector Protesilaus down to the little Chorineus. As these flittered under the dazzling sunlight in one continual chase over the flower carpet of lovely Securidaca volubilis Linn, their colours ever changed from glittering gold to darkest indigo-blue, from bright carmine to a deep red or from the clearest emerald to the most luscious green. I also found here for the first time pine-apples with leaves five to six feet long which had grown so thickly, one in between the other, that they formed absolutely impenetrable hedges. The fruits are generally very small but, as a compensation, are exceedingly sweet and aromatic.
242. The fauna showed their correspondence with that in the environs of the city.
Nothing however interested me so much as a regular colony of Cassicus persicus Daud which had selected as their home an unusually large Bombax globosum close to my study window.
243. I had never yet experienced such excitement and noise amongst birds. The whole of the residents of this huge tree were just then busily engaged in improving their long purse-like nests and building new ones. Its peculiarity of successfully imitating the cries and notes of all the four-footed and winged creatures found about has earned for it the name of “Mocking Bird”. There can hardly be a more turbulent or noisy songster than this mimic.
If the rest of the animal world is silent, it sings its own particular song which has’ something quite pleasant about it. The Toucan perhaps will let its hollow voice suddenly ring forth, and the Cassicus turns into a Toucan: should the various woodpeckers start their hammering, the Mocking Bird is a woodpecker: let the sheep bleat, and the bird is never at a loss for an answer, but if no other sound falls for a few seconds, it harps back again onto its own peculiar note, until this is interrupted perhaps by a gobble-gobble or quack-quack in the farm building, when it immediately turns into a turkey or a duck. This mimicry is accompanied simultaneously with such extraordinary movements and contortions of the head, neck, and whole body that I have often had to burst into loud laughter at the garrulous and assuming bird. Cassicus haemorrhus Daud is very generally associated with C. persicus upon the one tree, where their nests hang close together in fraternal concord, but is completely deficient in the gift of imitation. After the breeding season both species separate, and each flies in its own flock The Icterus xanthaomus Daud or Plantain Bird, just a plentiful, also hangs its bag-like grassblade nest on bush and tree: its abruptly ending note has something unusually soft and sad about it, while that of Icterus icterocephalus Daud is only a twitter. The sweetest songster however was unquestionably a wren (Tryothorus) which also seeks the neighbourhood of man as keenly as the latter loves and cherishes it: an empty bottle, which is quickly usurped by the pretty singer for its quarters, is purposely hung here and there under the roofs of the galleries and porticoes. Its melodious note greets the earliest rays of the morning sun and accompanies it until it dips on the far horizon into the vastly deep. The little creature at the same time becomes so tame that it will come in through the open window or the study, and perching on the sill, warble its lovely little tune in front of the occupants. Here as elsewhere it is strange that Nature for some reason unknown to us should deny a beautiful voice to the birds it graces with a brilliant plumage, but grant it to those from whom it has withheld one.
244. Mrs. Arrindell having given me to understand that, for some time past, a pair of alligators were lurking in the draining trench immediately behind her fowl-coop, to the serious detriment of its occupants not only my curiosity to watch these voracious gentry at close quarters but also my fondness for hunting would allow of no rest until I should lay the mischievous brutes in triumph at her feet. Cunning and cautious as they were I finally succeeded in outwitting both the thieves: they were Alligator punctulatus Spix. Neither of them was more than four feet but dowered with such a tenacity of life that it was long before we managed to kill them, although I had shot them both :n the eye, and particularly to avoid damaging the skin had used ball cartridge. The negroes begged for the flesh: they considered it very delicate and tasty.
245. Among the domestic animals, I got a great surprise with the sheep which, in the small flocks that are kept on every estate for their mutton, I took to be goats: the wool changes completely into smooth and straight mohair, on which account they are shorn immediately after importation into the Colony so that at least one fleece may be secured.
246. In these glorious surroundings, in this dear and charming family, my five weeks’ stay had flown quicker than a dream, when one morning my brother in company with a Mr. King, the Superintendent of the Barima and Essequibo Districts unexpectedly entered my room. They had come to fetch me for a short trip to Bartica Grove, a Mission Station on the Essequibo where my brother wanted to induce some of the coloured people living in the neighbourhood who had been with him as boat-hands on his previous journeys, to accompany him again to the mouth of the Orinoco. My most necessary things were quickly packed and within a few hours we were waving good-bye from the schooner to our friends ashore. The vessel my brother took advantage of was on her way to Bartika Grove, to load granite and belonged to a countryman, Mr. Spamann who, after a forty years’ residence in the Colony had earned a fairly considerably competency: unfortunately the poor fellow had lost his mother-tongue almost completely, for the way he spoke it was so broken that I should have taken him for anything but a German.
247. Facing like watchmen the twenty mile broad estuary of the Essequibo are the three large wooded islands of Leguan, Wakenaam and Tiger Island all of them decked with sugar estates, Leguan, stretching along the Eastern bank, is about twelve miles long, and contains 24 plantations: Wakenaam) off the Western shore, nine miles long and three broad, has 18 estates: Tiger Island with three plantations, is situate somewhat more to the Northward and is closer to the Western bank.
248. The commencing flood-tide carried us slowly up the proud stream along the channel between Wakenaam and Tiger island until suddenly, at the Southern extremity of the latter, a regular island-archipelago spread itself before my astonished gaze. Following this, and divided by but a channel, is Parrot Island, while the I5-mile long Hog Island only cultivated at its Northern end rather springs itself onto Wakenaam. To the East of Hog Island we find Fort Island (Large and Small) which, constituting the central point of the whole trade of the Colony during the times -of Dutch occupation, is at present only occupied by a few coloured people who have erected their unassuming houses among and in the ruins of the proud fortress of former days.
To the West of Hog Island, Great and Little Truly (Trouili) Islands are to be seen: they have received their name from the Manicaria saccifera Gart which the Colonists call Truly-Palm : a few estates are also situate on Great Truly. Closely connected with these two islands is a regular chain of smaller ones of which I only make mention of Buriabanelle, Kuketrittekute, Large arid Small Laulau as well as Mawuwekute. On the eastern bank, on the other hand, near the Fort Islands, the most important are Kuaepaluri, Kakatiri, and Quatte-banaba. It is only on the Western bank in its lower reaches that there flow into this majestic river a number of small tributaries, amongst which the Capouye, lteribisce, Supenaam, Arocari, Weni-weni, and Abenacari or Groote Creek are the most conspicuous.
249. We had to pass Large and Small Lulu (Lauiau) Islands before both banks of the Essequibo became visible in the distance, though they still lay eight miles apart. As we ever kept in the middle of the stream, the dark edges of the smooth stretch of water let me have a good guess at the wealth of foliage, but not to distinguish the different sorts of genera and species composing it. It was only the palms, such as Guilielma, Maximllana, Oreodoxa and the slender Leopoldinia vying the boiler-house chimneys in their efforts to reach the skies, as they towered with their graceful crowns above the obscure fringe, that were distinguishable at a distance through their characteristic shapes of frond.
