and
stimulated my curiosity. How I wish I could reproduce the glamour of
his discourses, the peculiar mixture of accurate knowledge and of racy
imagination which gave them their fascination, until even the
Professor's cynical and sceptical smile would gradually vanish from his
thin face as he listened. He would tell the history of the mighty
river so rapidly explored (for some of the first conquerors of Peru
actually crossed the entire continent upon its waters), and yet so
unknown in regard to all that lay behind its ever-changing banks.

"What is there?" he would cry, pointing to the north. "Wood and marsh
and unpenetrated jungle. Who knows what it may shelter? And there to
the south? A wilderness of swampy forest, where no white man has ever
been. The unknown is up against us on every side. Outside the narrow
lines of the rivers what does anyone know? Who will say what is
possible in such a country? Why should old man Challenger not be
right?" At which direct defiance the stubborn sneer would reappear
upon Professor Summerlee's face, and he would sit, shaking his sardonic
head in unsympathetic silence, behind the cloud of his briar-root pipe.

So much, for the moment, for my two white companions, whose characters
and limitations will be further exposed, as surely as my own, as this
narrative proceeds. But already we have enrolled certain retainers who
may play no small part in what is to come. The first is a gigantic
negro named Zambo, who is a black Hercules, as willing as any horse,
and about as intelligent. Him we enlisted at Para, on the
recommendation of the steamship company, on whose vessels he had
learned to speak a halting English.

It was at Para also that we engaged Gomez and Manuel, two half-breeds
from up the river, just come down with a cargo of redwood. They were
swarthy fellows, bearded and fierce, as active and wiry as panthers.
Both of them had spent their lives in those upper waters of the Amazon
which we were about to explore, and it was this recommendation which
had caused Lord John to engage them. One of them, Gomez, had the
further advantage that he could speak excellent English. These men
were willing to act as our personal servants, to cook, to row, or to
make themselves useful in any way at a payment of fifteen dollars a
month. Besides these, we had engaged three Mojo Indians from Bolivia,
who are the most skilful at fishing and boat work of all the river
tribes. The