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noon to midnight their curve of activity is at its height, while from dawn to about
nine o'clock it is lowest. As a matter of fact, we didn't see one of them all the time
we were getting under way, though I had the cannon raised to the deck and
manned against an assault. I hoped, but I was none too sure, that shells might
discourage them. The trees were full of monkeys of all sizes and shades, and
once we thought we saw a manlike creature watching us from the depth of the
forest.
Shortly after we resumed our course upstream, we saw the mouth of another and
smaller river emptying into the main channel from the south--that is, upon our
right; and almost immediately after we came upon a large island five or six miles
in length; and at fifty miles there was a still larger river than the last coming in
from the northwest, the course of the main stream having now changed to
northeast by southwest. The water was quite free from reptiles, and the
vegetation upon the banks of the river had altered to more open and parklike
forest, with eucalyptus and acacia mingled with a scattering of tree ferns, as
though two distinct periods of geologic time had overlapped and merged. The
grass, too, was less flowering, though there were still gorgeous patches mottling
the greensward; and lastly, the fauna was less multitudinous.
Six or seven miles farther, and the river widened considerably; before us opened
an expanse of water to the farther horizon, and then we sailed out upon an inland
sea so large that only a shore-line upon our side was visible to us. The waters all
about us were alive with life. There were still a few reptiles; but there were fish by
the thousands, by the millions.
The water of the inland sea was very warm, almost hot, and the atmosphere was
hot and heavy above it. It seemed strange that beyond the buttressed walls of
Caprona icebergs floated and the south wind was biting, for only a gentle breeze
moved across the face of these living waters, and that was damp and warm.
Gradually, we commenced to divest ourselves of our clothing, retaining only
sufficient for modesty; but the sun was not hot. It was more the heat of a steam-
room than of an oven.
We coasted up the shore of the lake in a north-westerly direction, sounding all
the time. We found the lake deep and the bottom rocky and steeply shelving
toward the center, and once when I moved straight out from shore to take other
soundings we could find no bottom whatsoever. In open spaces along the shore
we caught occasional glimpses of the distant cliffs, and here they appeared only a
trifle less precipitous than those which bound Caprona on the seaward side. My
theory is that in a far distant era Caprona was a mighty mountain--perhaps the
world's mightiest mountain--and that in some titanic eruption volcanic action
blew off the entire crest, blew thousands of feet of the mountain upward and
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