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able George had provided for them. The meal, however, like most other matters, had an end at last; and the travellers felt themselves free to follow the bent of their impatient inclinations. But the expedition upon which they were about to enter was one not to be undertaken without due foresight and preparation. It was only to be a preliminary exploration, it is true, only a journey of some three or four miles into the interior; but the country and the climate having already proved so extraordinarily at variance with all their preconceived ideas, who could say what new and strange forms of animal life might not possibly be lurking within those vast forest depths? It therefore behoved them to adopt at least a reasonable amount of precaution, and so to equip themselves that, in the event of their encountering new and hitherto unsuspected dangers, they might not find themselves in a wholly defenceless condition. The question of the kind of clothing to be worn was soon settled. The temperature stood at the extraordinary height (for that latitude) of fifty-seven degrees Fahrenheit; and the air, actually cool and bracing, felt almost oppressively warm to them after the rigours of the paleocrystic ice-field; they therefore donned a suit of rough serviceable cloth of moderate thickness, and stout waterproof leather walking boots. Then, for arms, as they were merely going on a reconnoitring and not a hunting expedition, they decided to take their large-bore repeating rifles, which, with the explosive shells constituting their ammunition, would enable the explorers to face anything. And lastly, as accident or design might cause them to extend their ramble beyond its originally intended limits, they adopted the precaution of providing themselves each with a small light knapsack of provisions. Thus equipped they proceeded on deck, raised the two boats with their davits out of the snug below-deck compartments in which they had hitherto been concealed, and, lowering the smaller boat of the two, stepped into her, and were quickly conveyed to the shore. It was with a curiously mingled feeling of awe and exultation that they sprang from the boat to the strand, and planted their feet for the first time upon this hitherto unknown and unvisited ground. "Behold!" exclaimed the baronet, pointing to their footprints in the sand; "behold the first human footprints ever impressed upon this soil." And stepping rapidly forward unti
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