any change in his surroundings. Though in his sixty-sixth year, I
have never heard him express any dissatisfaction at the occasional
hardships which we have had to encounter. I had regarded his presence
as an encumbrance to the expedition, but, as a matter of fact, I am now
well convinced that his power of endurance is as great as my own. In
temper he is naturally acid and sceptical. From the beginning he has
never concealed his belief that Professor Challenger is an absolute
fraud, that we are all embarked upon an absurd wild-goose chase and
that we are likely to reap nothing but disappointment and danger in
South America, and corresponding ridicule in England. Such are the
views which, with much passionate distortion of his thin features and
wagging of his thin, goat-like beard, he poured into our ears all the
way from Southampton to Manaos. Since landing from the boat he has
obtained some consolation from the beauty and variety of the insect and
bird life around him, for he is absolutely whole-hearted in his
devotion to science. He spends his days flitting through the woods
with his shot-gun and his butterfly-net, and his evenings in mounting
the many specimens he has acquired. Among his minor peculiarities are
that he is careless as to his attire, unclean in his person,
exceedingly absent-minded in his habits, and addicted to smoking a
short briar pipe, which is seldom out of his mouth. He has been upon
several scientific expeditions in his youth (he was with Robertson in
Papua), and the life of the camp and the canoe is nothing fresh to him.

Lord John Roxton has some points in common with Professor Summerlee,
and others in which they are the very antithesis to each other. He is
twenty years younger, but has something of the same spare, scraggy
physique. As to his appearance, I have, as I recollect, described it
in that portion of my narrative which I have left behind me in London.
He is exceedingly neat and prim in his ways, dresses always with great
care in white drill suits and high brown mosquito-boots, and shaves at
least once a day. Like most men of action, he is laconic in speech,
and sinks readily into his own thoughts, but he is always quick to
answer a question or join in a conversation, talking in a queer, jerky,
half-humorous fashion. His knowledge of the world, and very especially
of South America, is surprising, and he has a whole-hearted belief in
the possibilities of our journey which i