She

ed, and flooded the earth with warmth and light. I sat there in the boat listening to the gentle lapping of the water and watched him rise, till presently the slight drift of the

of years of wind and weather, and, to complete the resemblance, there was a scrubby growth of weeds or lichen upon it, which against the sun looked for all the world like the wool on a colossal negro's head. It certainly was very odd; so odd that now I believe it is not a mere freak of nature but a gigantic monument fashioned, like the well-known Egyptian Sphinx, by a forgotten people out of a pile of rock that lent itself to their design, perhaps as an emblem of warning and defiance to any enemies who approached the harbour. Unfortunately we were never able to ascertain whether or not this was the case, inasmuch as the rock was dif

the edge of the boat, trying to get as much sunshine as possible, and genera

ect for the first time, "I think that the old geneleman

nd the laugh

with me? I am all stiff-where is th

d with the exception of us four, and your own life was only saved by a miracle"; and whilst Job, now that it was light

"and to think that we should hav

thankful enough we were for it. Also the sun was beginning to get strength, a

ndy bottle, "there is the head the writing talks of

said, "th

answered, "the wh

head was here: your father saw it. Very likely it is not the sam

ou are an unbelieving Jew, Uncle Horac

drifting across a sandbank into the mouth of the river. Get hold of yo

ng sucked up by the sun, which was getting uncomfortably hot, and we saw that the mouth of the little estuary was here about half a mile across, and that the banks were very marshy, and crowded with crocodiles lying about on the mud like logs. About a mile ahead of us, however, was what appeared to be a strip of firm land, and for this we steered. In another quarter of an hour we were there, and making the boat fast to a beautiful tree with broad shining leaves, and flowers of the magnolia species, only they were rose-coloured and not white,[*] which hung over the water, we disembarked. This done we undressed, washed ourselves, and spread our clothes, together with the contents of the boat, in the sun to dry, which they very

n species of magnol

in Sikkim, and

llii.-

by the river, and on the other three by endless desolate swamps, that stretched as far as the eye could reach. This strip of land was raised about

en a wharf," said

d a wharf in the middle of these dreadful marshes in a coun

"Look there," he went on, pointing to a spot where the hurricane of the previous night had torn up one of the magnolia trees by the roots, which had grown on the

mbered down to the spot, and got bet

?" he

h brown cement, so hard that I could make no impression on it with the file in my shooting-knife. Nor was this all; seeing something projecting through the soil at the bottom of the

vessels have been moored, does it not, Unc

past age vessels had been moored there, and this stone wall was undoubtedly the remnant of a solidly

ncle Horace," said the exultant Leo; and reflecting on the mysterious ne

ffshoots. Then there were the Babylonians and the Ph?nicians, and the Persians, and all manner of people, all more or less civilised, to say nothing of the Jews whom everybody 'wants'

ll legible upon them. Beneath these tombs is a layer of débris representing a city. Farther down the cliff is a second layer representing an older city, and farther down still a third layer, the remains of yet another city of vast and u

, "but that is not w

one now?" I asked, tur

of every sort of waterfowl flew from its recesses, till it was sometimes difficult to see the sky. Now that the sun was getting hi

at this spectacle in dismay: "first, that we can't go across there" (I pointed to

r as a haystack

try and run for some port in the whale-boat, which would be a sufficiently risky p

to do," said Leo, setting his mou

uriosity to an extent of which I was secretly ashamed, and I was prepared to gratify it at any cost. Accordingly, having carefully fitted the mast, restowed the boat, and got out our rifles, we embarked. Fortunately the wind was blowing on shore from the ocean, so we were able to hoist the sail. Indeed, we afterwards found out that as a g

riosity, I should judge that we were the first white men that they had ever seen. Upon my word, I once or twice thought that they were coming into the boat to gratify it. Leo wanted to fire at them, but I dissuaded him, fearing the consequences. Also, we saw hundreds of crocodiles basking on the muddy banks, and thousands upon thousands of water-fowl. Some of these we s

willow-that grew by the edge of the river, and lie there and gasp till at length the approach of sunset put a period to our miseries. Seeing what appeared to be an open space of water straight ahead of us, we determined to row there before settling what to do for the night. Just as we were about to loosen the boat, however, a beautiful waterbuck, with great horns curving forward, and a white stripe across the rum

hispered, "mind

contemptuously; "I could

the right and left were wide stretches of lonely death-breeding swamp, unbroken and unrelieved so far as the eye could reach, except here and there by ponds of black and peaty water that, mirror-like, flashed up the red rays of the setting sun. Behind us and before stretched the vista of the sluggish river, ending in glimpses of a reed-fringed lagoon, on the surface of which the long lights of the evening played as the faint breeze stirred the shadows. To the west loom

ke an arrow, and a hundred yards away and more. By Jove! over and over and over! "Well, I think I've wiped your eye there, Master Leo," I say,

f his charms lighting up his handsome face like a ray of light, "I beg your par

fearing the poisonous exhalations from the marsh, from which we thought we should be freer on the water. So we lighted a lantern, and made our evening meal off another potted tongue in the best fashion that we could, and then prepared to go to sleep, only, however, to find that sleep was impossible. For, whether they were attracted by the lantern, or by the unaccustomed smell of a white man for which they had been waiting for the last thousand years or so, I know not; but certainly we were presently attacked by tens of thousands of the most blood-

on the bank, eh, Avuncular?" (Leo sometimes addressed me in this disrespectful wa

of roar that echoed over the water to us from the lions on the banks,

helter of the blanket, perhaps because I found that the mosquitoes were biting

tars, loo

were two wide and ever-widening circles of concentric rings rippling away across the surf

s it?"

f a sense of personal injury, habitual respect, and acknowledged fear, "and they ar

r ferocious eyes. Attracted either by the smell of the newly killed waterbuc

d roared. At that moment Leo fired, the bullet went right down her open mouth and out at the back of her neck, and down she dropped, with a splash, dead. The other lion-a full-grown male-was some two paces behind her. At this second he got his forepaws on to the bank, when a strange thing ha

g!" and sure enough he had. We could see the long snout with

afterwards discovered, had one of his eyes torn out, and slightly turned over; instantly the lion got him by the throat and held on, and then over and over they rolled upon the bank struggling hideously. It was impossible to follow their movements, but when next we got a clear view the tables had turned, for the crocodile, whose head seemed to be a mass o

roan he died, and the crocodile, after standing for a minute motionless, slowly rolled over on to his side, hi

nd a shocking sight, and one that I supp

look out, we managed to spend the rest of the