ce. Gomez whipped out his knife, however, and but for the
huge strength of his captor, which enabled him to disarm him with one
hand, he would certainly have stabbed him. The matter has ended in
reprimands, the opponents have been compelled to shake hands, and there
is every hope that all will be well. As to the feuds of the two
learned men, they are continuous and bitter. It must be admitted that
Challenger is provocative in the last degree, but Summerlee has an acid
tongue, which makes matters worse. Last night Challenger said that he
never cared to walk on the Thames Embankment and look up the river, as
it was always sad to see one's own eventual goal. He is convinced, of
course, that he is destined for Westminster Abbey. Summerlee rejoined,
however, with a sour smile, by saying that he understood that Millbank
Prison had been pulled down. Challenger's conceit is too colossal to
allow him to be really annoyed. He only smiled in his beard and
repeated "Really! Really!" in the pitying tone one would use to a
child. Indeed, they are children both--the one wizened and
cantankerous, the other formidable and overbearing, yet each with a
brain which has put him in the front rank of his scientific age.
Brain, character, soul--only as one sees more of life does one
understand how distinct is each.

The very next day we did actually make our start upon this remarkable
expedition. We found that all our possessions fitted very easily into
the two canoes, and we divided our personnel, six in each, taking the
obvious precaution in the interests of peace of putting one Professor
into each canoe. Personally, I was with Challenger, who was in a
beatific humor, moving about as one in a silent ecstasy and beaming
benevolence from every feature. I have had some experience of him in
other moods, however, and shall be the less surprised when the
thunderstorms suddenly come up amidst the sunshine. If it is
impossible to be at your ease, it is equally impossible to be dull in
his company, for one is always in a state of half-tremulous doubt as to
what sudden turn his formidable temper may take.

For two days we made our way up a good-sized river some hundreds of
yards broad, and dark in color, but transparent, so that one could
usually see the bottom. The affluents of the Amazon are, half of them,
of this nature, while the other half are whitish and opaque, the
difference depending upon the class of country through which th