essor. Then, placing
his hand upon his breast and holding himself with great dignity, he
uttered the word "Maretas" several times. The Professor, unabashed,
seized the nearest Indian by the shoulder and proceeded to lecture upon
him as if he were a potted specimen in a class-room.

"The type of these people," said he in his sonorous fashion, "whether
judged by cranial capacity, facial angle, or any other test, cannot be
regarded as a low one; on the contrary, we must place it as
considerably higher in the scale than many South American tribes which
I can mention. On no possible supposition can we explain the evolution
of such a race in this place. For that matter, so great a gap
separates these ape-men from the primitive animals which have survived
upon this plateau, that it is inadmissible to think that they could
have developed where we find them."

"Then where the dooce did they drop from?" asked Lord John.

"A question which will, no doubt, be eagerly discussed in every
scientific society in Europe and America," the Professor answered. "My
own reading of the situation for what it is worth--" he inflated his
chest enormously and looked insolently around him at the words--"is
that evolution has advanced under the peculiar conditions of this
country up to the vertebrate stage, the old types surviving and living
on in company with the newer ones. Thus we find such modern creatures
as the tapir--an animal with quite a respectable length of
pedigree--the great deer, and the ant-eater in the companionship of
reptilian forms of jurassic type. So much is clear. And now come the
ape-men and the Indian. What is the scientific mind to think of their
presence? I can only account for it by an invasion from outside. It
is probable that there existed an anthropoid ape in South America, who
in past ages found his way to this place, and that he developed into
the creatures we have seen, some of which"--here he looked hard at
me--"were of an appearance and shape which, if it had been accompanied
by corresponding intelligence, would, I do not hesitate to say, have
reflected credit upon any living race. As to the Indians I cannot
doubt that they are more recent immigrants from below. Under the
stress of famine or of conquest they have made their way up here.
Faced by ferocious creatures which they had never before seen, they
took refuge in the caves which our young friend has described, but they
have no doubt had a bitte