Kaieteur Falls which is one of the longest and widest rivers in South America and the longest river in Guyana. The falls were discovered by Europeans in 1870 by a party led by Charles Barrington Brown, a British geologist appointed as a government surveyor to the colony of British Guiana. Brown and his partner James Sawkins had arrived in Georgetown in 1867, and while they did some of their mapping and preparation of geological reports together, some work was performed in separate expeditions, and Sawkins was taking a break from his work at the time of Brown's discovery of Kaieteur. At this
Kaieteur Falls point, Brown did not have time to investigate Kaieteur Falls closer, so he returned one year later to make comprehensive measurements. Brown’s book "Canoe and Camp life in British Guiana" was published in 1876. Two years later, in 1878, he published "Fifteen Thousand Miles on the Amazon and its tributaries". According to a Patamona Indian legend, Kaieteur Falls was named for Kai, a chief, or Toshao who acted to save his people by paddling over the falls in an act of self-sacrifice to Makonaima, the great spirit. Another legend though was told to Brown by Amerindians in the night of