some remembered landmark. The place where they have put in
is on its west side, and the high ground interposed hinders their view
to the eastward, while all seen north and south is unknown to the old
carpenter.

They are about starting off, when Mrs Gancy says interrogatively, "Why
shouldn't we go too?"--meaning herself and Leoline, as the daughter is
prettily named.

"Yes, papa," urges the young girl; "you'll take us with you, won't you?"

With a glance up the hill, to see whether the climb be not too
difficult, he answers, "Certainly, dear; I've no objection. Indeed, the
exercise may do you both good, after being so long shut up on board
ship."

"It would do us all good," thinks Henry Chester, for a certain reason
wishing to be of the party, that reason, as a child might see, being
Leoline. He does not speak his wish, however, backwardness forbidding,
but is well pleased at hearing her brother, who is without bar of this
kind, cry out, "Yes, father. And the other pair of us, Harry and
myself, would like to go too. Neither of us have got our land legs yet,
as we found yesterday while fighting the penguins. A little
mountaineering will help to put the steady into them."

"Oh, very well," assents the good-natured skipper. "You may all come--
except Caesar. He had better stay by the boat, and keep the fire
burning."

"Jess so, Massa Cap'n, an' much obleeged to ye. Dis chile perfur
stayin'. Golly! I doan' want to tire myse'f to deff a-draggin' up dat
ar pressypus. 'Sides, I hab got ter look out for de dinner, 'gainst yer
gettin' back."

"The doctor" [The popular sea-name for a ship's cook] speaks the truth
in saying he does not wish to accompany them, being one of the laziest
mortals that ever sat roasting himself beside a galley fire. So,
without further parley, they set forth, leaving him by the boat.

At first they find the uphill slope gentle and easy, their path leading
through hummocks of tall tussac, whose tops rise above their heads, and
the flower-scapes many feet higher. Their chief difficulty is the
spongy nature of the soil, in which they sink at times ankle-deep. But
farther up it is drier and firmer, the lofty tussac giving place to
grass of humbler stature; in fact, a sward so short, that the ground
appears as though freshly mown. Here the climbers catch sight of a
number of moving creatures, which they might easily mistake for
quadrupeds. Hundreds of them are running to and fro li