Our friends at home may well rejoice with us, for we are at ourgoal, and up to a point, at least, we have shown that thestatement of Professor Challenger can be verified. We have not,it is true, ascended the plateau, but it lies before us, and evenProfessor Summerlee is in a more chastened mood. Not that hewill for an instant admit that his rival could be right, but heis less persistent in his incessant objections, and has sunk forthe most part into an observant silence. I must hark back,however, and continue my narrative from where I dropped it. We are sending home one of our local Indians who is injured,and I am committing this letter to his charge, with considerabledoubts in my mind as to whether it will ever come to hand.

When I wrote last we were about to leave the Indian village wherewe had been deposited by the Esmeralda. I have to begin myreport by bad news, for the first serious personal trouble(I pass over the incessant bickerings between the Professors)occurred this evening, and might have had a tragic ending. I have spoken of our English-speaking half-breed, Gomez--a fineworker and a willing fellow, but afflicted, I fancy, with thevice of curiosity, which is common enough among such men. On thelast evening he seems to have hid himself near the hut in whichwe were discussing our plans, and, being observed by our hugenegro Zambo, who is as faithful as a dog and has the hatred whichall his race bear to the half-breeds, he was dragged out andcarried into our presence. Gomez whipped out his knife, however,and but for the huge strength of his captor, which enabled him todisarm him with one hand, he would certainly have stabbed him. The matter has ended in reprimands, the opponents have beencompelled to shake hands, and there is every hope that all willbe well. As to the feuds of the two learned men, they arecontinuous and bitter. It must be admitted that Challenger isprovocative in the last degree, but Summerlee has an acid tongue,which makes matters worse. Last night Challenger said that henever cared to walk on the Thames Embankment and look up the river,as it was always sad to see one's own eventual goal. He isconvinced, of course, that he is destined for Westminster Abbey. Summerlee rejoined, however, with a sour smile, by sayingthat he understood that Millbank Prison had been pulled down. Challenger's conceit is too colossal to allow him to bereally annoyed. He only smiled in his beard and repeated"Really! Really!" in the pitying tone one would use to a child. Indeed, they are children both--the one wizened and cantankerous,the other formidable and overbearing, yet each with a brain whichhas put him in the front rank of his scientific age. Brain, character,soul--only as one sees more of life does one understand how distinctis each.

The very next day we did actually make our start upon thisremarkable expedition. We found that all our possessions fittedvery easily into the two canoes, and we divided our personnel,six in each, taking the obvious precaution in the interests ofpeace of putting one Professor into each canoe. Personally, Iwas with Challenger, who was in a beatific humor, moving about asone in a silent ecstasy and beaming benevolence from every feature. I have had some experience of him in other moods, however, andshall be the less surprised when the thunderstorms suddenlycome up amidst the sunshine. If it is impossible to be at yourease, it is equally impossible to be dull in his company, for oneis always in a state of half-tremulous doubt as to what suddenturn his formidable temper may take.

For two days we made our way up a good-sized river some hundredsof yards broad, and dark in color, but transparent, so that onecould usually see the bottom. The affluents of the Amazon are,half of them, of this nature, while the other half are whitishand opaque, the difference depending upon the class of countrythrough which they have flowed. The dark indicate vegetabledecay, while the others point to clayey soil. Twice we cameacross rapids, and in each case made a portage of half a mile orso to avoid them. The woods on either side were primeval, whichare more easily penetrated than woods of the second growth, andwe had no great difficulty in carrying our canoes through them. How shall I ever forget the solemn mystery of it? The height ofthe trees and the thickness of the boles exceeded anything whichI in my town-bred life could have imagined, shooting upwards inmagnificent columns until, at an enormous distance above ourheads, we could dimly discern the spot where they threw out theirside-branches into Gothic upward curves which coalesced to formone great matted roof of verdure, through which only anoccasional golden ray of sunshine shot downwards to trace a thindazzling line of light amidst the majestic obscurity. As wewalked noiselessly amid the thick, soft carpet of decayingvegetation the hush fell upon our souls which comes upon us inthe twilight of the Abbey, and even Professor Challenger'sfull-chested notes sank into a whisper. Alone, I should havebeen ignorant of the names of these giant growths, but our men ofscience pointed out the cedars, the great silk cotton trees, andthe redwood trees, with all that profusion of various plantswhich has made this continent the chief supplier to the humanrace of those gifts of Nature which depend upon the vegetableworld, while it is the most backward in those products which comefrom animal life. Vivid orchids and wonderful colored lichenssmoldered upon the swarthy tree-trunks and where a wanderingshaft of light fell full upon the golden allamanda, the scarletstar-clusters of the tacsonia, or the rich deep blue of ipomaea,the effect was as a dream of fairyland. In these great wastes offorest, life, which abhors darkness, struggles ever upwards tothe light. Every plant, even the smaller ones, curls and writhesto the green surface, twining itself round its stronger andtaller brethren in the effort. Climbing plants are monstrous andluxuriant, but others which have never been known to climbelsewhere learn the art as an escape from that somber shadow, sothat the common nettle, the jasmine, and even the jacitara palmtree can be seen circling the stems of the cedars and striving toreach their crowns. Of animal life there was no movement amidthe majestic vaulted aisles which stretched from us as we walked,but a constant movement far above our heads told of thatmultitudinous world of snake and monkey, bird and sloth, whichlived in the sunshine, and looked down in wonder at our tiny, dark,stumbling figures in the obscure depths immeasurably below them. At dawn and at sunset the howler monkeys screamed together andthe parrakeets broke into shrill chatter, but during the hothours of the day only the full drone of insects, like the beat ofa distant surf, filled the ear, while nothing moved amid thesolemn vistas of stupendous trunks, fading away into the darknesswhich held us in. Once some bandy-legged, lurching creature, anant-eater or a bear, scuttled clumsily amid the shadows. It was theonly sign of earth life which I saw in this great Amazonian forest.

And yet there were indications that even human life itself wasnot far from us in those mysterious recesses. On the third dayout we were aware of a singular deep throbbing in the air,rhythmic and solemn, coming and going fitfully throughoutthe morning. The two boats were paddling within a few yardsof each other when first we heard it, and our Indians remainedmotionless, as if they had been turned to bronze, listeningintently with expressions of terror upon their faces.

"What is it, then?" I asked.

"Drums," said Lord John, carelessly; "war drums. I have heardthem before."

"Yes, sir, war drums," said Gomez, the half-breed. "Wild Indians,bravos, not mansos; they watch us every mile of the way; kill usif they can."

"How can they watch us?" I asked, gazing into the dark,motionless void.

The half-breed shrugged his broad shoulders.

"The Indians know. They have their own way. They watch us. They talk the drum talk to each other. Kill us if they can."

By the afternoon of that day--my pocket diary shows me that itwas Tuesday, August 18th--at least six or seven drums werethrobbing from various points. Sometimes they beat quickly,sometimes slowly, sometimes in obvious question and answer, onefar to the east breaking out in a high staccato rattle, and beingfollowed after a pause by a deep roll from the north. There wassomething indescribably nerve-shaking and menacing in thatconstant mutter, which seemed to shape itself into the verysyllables of the half-breed, endlessly repeated, "We will killyou if we can. We will kill you if we can." No one ever moved inthe silent woods. All the peace and soothing of quiet Nature layin that dark curtain of vegetation, but away from behind therecame ever the one message from our fellow-man. "We will kill youif we can," said the men in the east. "We will kill you if wecan," said the men in the north.

All day the drums rumbled and whispered, while their menacereflected itself in the faces of our colored companions. Even thehardy, swaggering half-breed seemed cowed. I learned, however,that day once for all that both Summerlee and Challengerpossessed that highest type of bravery, the bravery of thescientific mind. Theirs was the spirit which upheld Darwin amongthe gauchos of the Argentine or Wallace among the head-huntersof Malaya. It is decreed by a merciful Nature that the human braincannot think of two things simultaneously, so that if it besteeped in curiosity as to science it has no room for merelypersonal considerations. All day amid that incessant andmysterious menace our two Professors watched every bird upon thewing, and every shrub upon the bank, with many a sharp wordycontention, when the snarl of Summerlee came quick upon the deepgrowl of Challenger, but with no more sense of danger and no morereference to drum-beating Indians than if they were seatedtogether in the smoking-room of the Royal Society's Club in St.James's Street. Once only did they condescend to discuss them.

"Miranha or Amajuaca cannibals," said Challenger, jerking histhumb towards the reverberating wood.

"No doubt, sir," Summerlee answered. "Like all such tribes, Ishall expect to find them of poly-synthetic speech and ofMongolian type."

"Polysynthetic certainly," said Challenger, indulgently. "I amnot aware that any other type of language exists in this continent,and I have notes of more than a hundred. The Mongolian theoryI regard with deep suspicion."

"I should have thought that even a limited knowledge ofcomparative anatomy would have helped to verify it," saidSummerlee, bitterly.

Challenger thrust out his aggressive chin until he was all beardand hat-rim. "No doubt, sir, a limited knowledge would havethat effect. When one's knowledge is exhaustive, one comes toother conclusions." They glared at each other in mutual defiance,while all round rose the distant whisper, "We will kill you--wewill kill you if we can."

That night we moored our canoes with heavy stones for anchors inthe center of the stream, and made every preparation for apossible attack. Nothing came, however, and with the dawn wepushed upon our way, the drum-beating dying out behind us. About three o'clock in the afternoon we came to a very steep rapid,more than a mile long--the very one in which Professor Challengerhad suffered disaster upon his first journey. I confess that thesight of it consoled me, for it was really the first directcorroboration, slight as it was, of the truth of his story. The Indians carried first our canoes and then our stores throughthe brushwood, which is very thick at this point, while we fourwhites, our rifles on our shoulders, walked between them and anydanger coming from the woods. Before evening we had successfullypassed the rapids, and made our way some ten miles above them,where we anchored for the night. At this point I reckoned thatwe had come not less than a hundred miles up the tributary fromthe main stream.

It was in the early forenoon of the next day that we made thegreat departure. Since dawn Professor Challenger had beenacutely uneasy, continually scanning each bank of the river. Suddenly he gave an exclamation of satisfaction and pointed to asingle tree, which projected at a peculiar angle over the side ofthe stream.

"What do you make of that?" he asked.

"It is surely an Assai palm," said Summerlee.

"Exactly. It was an Assai palm which I took for my landmark. The secret opening is half a mile onwards upon the other side ofthe river. There is no break in the trees. That is the wonderand the mystery of it. There where you see light-green rushesinstead of dark-green undergrowth, there between the great cottonwoods, that is my private gate into the unknown. Push through,and you will understand."

It was indeed a wonderful place. Having reached the spot markedby a line of light-green rushes, we poled out two canoes throughthem for some hundreds of yards, and eventually emerged into aplacid and shallow stream, running clear and transparent over asandy bottom. It may have been twenty yards across, and wasbanked in on each side by most luxuriant vegetation. No one whohad not observed that for a short distance reeds had taken theplace of shrubs, could possibly have guessed the existence ofsuch a stream or dreamed of the fairyland beyond.

For a fairyland it was--the most wonderful that the imaginationof man could conceive. The thick vegetation met overhead,interlacing into a natural pergola, and through this tunnel ofverdure in a golden twilight flowed the green, pellucid river,beautiful in itself, but marvelous from the strange tints thrownby the vivid light from above filtered and tempered in its fall. Clear as crystal, motionless as a sheet of glass, green as theedge of an iceberg, it stretched in front of us under its leafyarchway, every stroke of our paddles sending a thousand ripplesacross its shining surface. It was a fitting avenue to a landof wonders. All sign of the Indians had passed away, but animallife was more frequent, and the tameness of the creatures showedthat they knew nothing of the hunter. Fuzzy little black-velvetmonkeys, with snow-white teeth and gleaming, mocking eyes,chattered at us as we passed. With a dull, heavy splash anoccasional cayman plunged in from the bank. Once a dark, clumsytapir stared at us from a gap in the bushes, and then lumberedaway through the forest; once, too, the yellow, sinuous form of agreat puma whisked amid the brushwood, and its green, balefuleyes glared hatred at us over its tawny shoulder. Bird life wasabundant, especially the wading birds, stork, heron, and ibisgathering in little groups, blue, scarlet, and white, upon everylog which jutted from the bank, while beneath us the crystalwater was alive with fish of every shape and color.

For three days we made our way up this tunnel of hazygreen sunshine. On the longer stretches one could hardlytell as one looked ahead where the distant green water endedand the distant green archway began. The deep peace of thisstrange waterway was unbroken by any sign of man.

"No Indian here. Too much afraid. Curupuri," said Gomez.

"Curupuri is the spirit of the woods," Lord John explained. "It's a name for any kind of devil. The poor beggars think thatthere is something fearsome in this direction, and therefore theyavoid it."

On the third day it became evident that our journey in the canoescould not last much longer, for the stream was rapidly growingmore shallow. Twice in as many hours we stuck upon the bottom. Finally we pulled the boats up among the brushwood and spent thenight on the bank of the river. In the morning Lord John and Imade our way for a couple of miles through the forest, keepingparallel with the stream; but as it grew ever shallower wereturned and reported, what Professor Challenger had alreadysuspected, that we had reached the highest point to which thecanoes could be brought. We drew them up, therefore, andconcealed them among the bushes, blazing a tree with our axes, sothat we should find them again. Then we distributed the variousburdens among us--guns, ammunition, food, a tent, blankets, andthe rest--and, shouldering our packages, we set forth upon themore laborious stage of our journey.

An unfortunate quarrel between our pepper-pots marked the outsetof our new stage. Challenger had from the moment of joining usissued directions to the whole party, much to the evidentdiscontent of Summerlee. Now, upon his assigning some duty tohis fellow-Professor (it was only the carrying of an aneroidbarometer), the matter suddenly came to a head.

"May I ask, sir," said Summerlee, with vicious calm, "in whatcapacity you take it upon yourself to issue these orders?"

Challenger glared and bristled.

"I do it, Professor Summerlee, as leader of this expedition."

"I am compelled to tell you, sir, that I do not recognize you inthat capacity."

"Indeed!" Challenger bowed with unwieldy sarcasm. "Perhaps youwould define my exact position."

"Yes, sir. You are a man whose veracity is upon trial, and thiscommittee is here to try it. You walk, sir, with your judges."

"Dear me!" said Challenger, seating himself on the side of one ofthe canoes. "In that case you will, of course, go on your way,and I will follow at my leisure. If I am not the leader youcannot expect me to lead."

Thank heaven that there were two sane men--Lord John Roxtonand myself--to prevent the petulance and folly of our learnedProfessors from sending us back empty-handed to London. Such arguing and pleading and explaining before we could getthem mollified! Then at last Summerlee, with his sneer and hispipe, would move forwards, and Challenger would come rolling andgrumbling after. By some good fortune we discovered about thistime that both our savants had the very poorest opinion of Dr.Illingworth of Edinburgh. Thenceforward that was our one safety,and every strained situation was relieved by our introducing thename of the Scotch zoologist, when both our Professors would forma temporary alliance and friendship in their detestation andabuse of this common rival.

Advancing in single file along the bank of the stream, we soonfound that it narrowed down to a mere brook, and finally that itlost itself in a great green morass of sponge-like mosses, intowhich we sank up to our knees. The place was horribly hauntedby clouds of mosquitoes and every form of flying pest, so we wereglad to find solid ground again and to make a circuit among thetrees, which enabled us to outflank this pestilent morass, whichdroned like an organ in the distance, so loud was it with insect life.

On the second day after leaving our canoes we found that thewhole character of the country changed. Our road waspersistently upwards, and as we ascended the woods becamethinner and lost their tropical luxuriance. The huge trees ofthe alluvial Amazonian plain gave place to the Phoenix and cocopalms, growing in scattered clumps, with thick brushwood between. In the damper hollows the Mauritia palms threw out their gracefuldrooping fronds. We traveled entirely by compass, and once ortwice there were differences of opinion between Challenger andthe two Indians, when, to quote the Professor's indignant words,the whole party agreed to "trust the fallacious instincts ofundeveloped savages rather than the highest product of modernEuropean culture." That we were justified in doing so was shownupon the third day, when Challenger admitted that he recognizedseveral landmarks of his former journey, and in one spot weactually came upon four fire-blackened stones, which must havemarked a camping-place.

The road still ascended, and we crossed a rock-studded slopewhich took two days to traverse. The vegetation had againchanged, and only the vegetable ivory tree remained, with agreat profusion of wonderful orchids, among which I learned torecognize the rare Nuttonia Vexillaria and the glorious pink andscarlet blossoms of Cattleya and odontoglossum. Occasional brookswith pebbly bottoms and fern-draped banks gurgled down the shallowgorges in the hill, and offered good camping-grounds every eveningon the banks of some rock-studded pool, where swarms of littleblue-backed fish, about the size and shape of English trout,gave us a delicious supper.

On the ninth day after leaving the canoes, having done, as Ireckon, about a hundred and twenty miles, we began to emerge fromthe trees, which had grown smaller until they were mere shrubs. Their place was taken by an immense wilderness of bamboo, whichgrew so thickly that we could only penetrate it by cutting apathway with the machetes and billhooks of the Indians. It tookus a long day, traveling from seven in the morning till eight atnight, with only two breaks of one hour each, to get throughthis obstacle. Anything more monotonous and wearying could not beimagined, for, even at the most open places, I could not see morethan ten or twelve yards, while usually my vision was limited tothe back of Lord John's cotton jacket in front of me, and to theyellow wall within a foot of me on either side. From above cameone thin knife-edge of sunshine, and fifteen feet over our headsone saw the tops of the reeds swaying against the deep blue sky. I do not know what kind of creatures inhabit such a thicket, butseveral times we heard the plunging of large, heavy animals quiteclose to us. From their sounds Lord John judged them to be someform of wild cattle. Just as night fell we cleared the belt ofbamboos, and at once formed our camp, exhausted by theinterminable day.

Early next morning we were again afoot, and found that thecharacter of the country had changed once again. Behind us wasthe wall of bamboo, as definite as if it marked the course ofa river. In front was an open plain, sloping slightly upwardsand dotted with clumps of tree-ferns, the whole curving beforeus until it ended in a long, whale-backed ridge. This we reachedabout midday, only to find a shallow valley beyond, rising onceagain into a gentle incline which led to a low, rounded sky-line. It was here, while we crossed the first of these hills, that anincident occurred which may or may not have been important.

Professor Challenger, who with the two local Indians was in the vanof the party, stopped suddenly and pointed excitedly to the right. As he did so we saw, at the distance of a mile or so, somethingwhich appeared to be a huge gray bird flap slowly up from theground and skim smoothly off, flying very low and straight, untilit was lost among the tree-ferns.

"Did you see it?" cried Challenger, in exultation. "Summerlee, didyou see it?"

His colleague was staring at the spot where the creature had disappeared.

"What do you claim that it was?" he asked.

"To the best of my belief, a pterodactyl."

Summerlee burst into derisive laughter "A pter-fiddlestick!" said he. "It was a stork, if ever I saw one."

Challenger was too furious to speak. He simply swung his packupon his back and continued upon his march. Lord John came abreastof me, however, and his face was more grave than was his wont. He had his Zeiss glasses in his hand.

"I focused it before it got over the trees," said he. "I won'tundertake to say what it was, but I'll risk my reputation as asportsman that it wasn't any bird that ever I clapped eyes on inmy life."

So there the matter stands. Are we really just at the edge ofthe unknown, encountering the outlying pickets of this lost worldof which our leader speaks? I give you the incident as itoccurred and you will know as much as I do. It stands alone, forwe saw nothing more which could be called remarkable.

And now, my readers, if ever I have any, I have brought you upthe broad river, and through the screen of rushes, and down thegreen tunnel, and up the long slope of palm trees, and throughthe bamboo brake, and across the plain of tree-ferns. At lastour destination lay in full sight of us. When we had crossedthe second ridge we saw before us an irregular, palm-studdedplain, and then the line of high red cliffs which I have seenin the picture. There it lies, even as I write, and there canbe no question that it is the same. At the nearest point it isabout seven miles from our present camp, and it curves away,stretching as far as I can see. Challenger struts about likea prize peacock, and Summerlee is silent, but still sceptical. Another day should bring some of our doubts to an end. Meanwhile, as Jose, whose arm was pierced by a broken bamboo,insists upon returning, I send this letter back in his charge,and only hope that it may eventually come to hand. I will writeagain as the occasion serves. I have enclosed with this a roughchart of our journey, which may have the effect of making theaccount rather easier to understand.