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turn the channel ran comparatively straight for between one hundred and fifty
and two hundred yards. The waters grew suddenly lighter, and my spirits rose
accordingly. I shouted down to those below that I saw daylight ahead, and a
great shout of thanksgiving reverberated through the ship. A moment later we
emerged into sunlit water, and immediately I raised the periscope and looked
about me upon the strangest landscape I had ever seen.
We were in the middle of a broad and now sluggish river the banks of which were
lined by giant, arboraceous ferns, raising their mighty fronds fifty, one hundred,
two hundred feet into the quiet air. Close by us something rose to the surface of
the river and dashed at the periscope. I had a vision of wide, distended jaws, and
then all was blotted out. A shiver ran down into the tower as the thing closed
upon the periscope. A moment later it was gone, and I could see again. Above the
trees there soared into my vision a huge thing on batlike wings--a creature large
as a large whale, but fashioned more after the order of a lizard. Then again
something charged the periscope and blotted out the mirror. I will confess that I
was almost gasping for breath as I gave the commands to emerge. Into what sort
of strange land had fate guided us?
The instant the deck was awash, I opened the conning-tower hatch and stepped
out. In another minute the deck-hatch lifted, and those who were not on duty
below streamed up the ladder, Olson bringing Nobs under one arm. For several
minutes no one spoke; I think they must each have been as overcome by awe as
was I. All about us was a flora and fauna as strange and wonderful to us as might
have been those upon a distant planet had we suddenly been miraculously
transported through ether to an unknown world. Even the grass upon the nearer
bank was unearthly--lush and high it grew, and each blade bore upon its tip a
brilliant flower--violet or yellow or carmine or blue--making as gorgeous a sward
as human imagination might conceive. But the life! It teemed. The tall, fernlike
trees were alive with monkeys, snakes, and lizards. Huge insects hummed and
buzzed hither and thither. Mighty forms could be seen moving upon the ground
in the thick forest, while the bosom of the river wriggled with living things, and
above flapped the wings of gigantic creatures such as we are taught have been
extinct throughout countless ages.
"Look!" cried Olson. "Would you look at the giraffe comin' up out o' the bottom of
the say?" We looked in the direction he pointed and saw a long, glossy neck
surmounted by a small head rising above the surface of the river. Presently the
back of the creature was exposed, brown and glossy as the water dripped from it.
It turned its eyes upon us, opened its lizard-like mouth, emitted a shrill hiss and
came for us. The thing must have been sixteen or eighteen feet in length and
closely resembled pictures I had seen of restored plesiosaurs of the lower
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