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Each of us was armed with rifle, revolver, and cutlass, but as we stood shoulder

to shoulder facing the wild men I was loath to give the command to fire upon

them, inflicting death or suffering upon strangers with whom we had no quarrel,

and so I attempted to restrain them for the moment that we might parley with

them.

To this end I raised my left hand above my head with the palm toward them as

the most natural gesture indicative of peaceful intentions which occurred to me.

At the same time I called aloud to them that we were friends, though, from their

appearance, there was nothing to indicate that they might understand Pan-

American, or ancient English, which are of course practically identical.

At my gesture and words they ceased their shouting and came to a halt a few

paces from us. Then, in deep tones, one who was in advance of the others and

whom I took to be the chief or leader of the party replied in a tongue which while

intelligible to us, was so distorted from the English language from which it

evidently had sprung, that it was with difficulty that we interpreted it.

"Who are you," he asked, "and from what country?"

I told him that we were from Pan-America, but he only shook his head and asked

where that was. He had never heard of it, or of the Atlantic Ocean which I told

him separated his country from mine.

"It has been two hundred years," I told him, "since a Pan-American visited

England."

England?" he asked. "What is England?"

Why this is a part of England!" I exclaimed.

This is Grubitten," he assured me. "I know nothing about England, and I have

lived here all my life."

It was not until long after that the derivation of Grubitten occurred to me.

Unquestionably it is a corruption of Great Britain, a name formerly given to the

large island comprising England, Scotland and Wales. Subsequently we heard it

pronounced Grabrittin and Grubritten.

I then asked the fellow if he could direct us to Ryde or Newport; but again he

shook his head, and said that he never had heard of such countries. And when I

asked him if there were any cities in this country he did not know what I meant,

never having heard the word cities.

The Lost Continent