ey over the distant heights, combined to form
a picture the charming, fairy-like beauty of which it is as impossible
to describe as it was entrancing to look upon.

So lovely indeed was it that I found it hard to resist the entreaties of
Lady Emily and her sister that I would lower a boat and take them for a
short pull up the river before sunset. It was necessary, however, that
our first visit to this lovely island paradise should be made with all
due circumspection; for although no sign or trace of inhabitants had as
yet been discovered, the place might for all that be peopled, and
peopled, too, with cruel, bloodthirsty savages, for aught we could tell
to the contrary. While, therefore, I was exceedingly anxious, for
reasons of my own, to get a nearer peep at the place without a moment's
unnecessary delay, I felt bound to point out to the ladies the absolute
necessity for determining the question whether or not there were any
inhabitants on the island before exposing them to the possible risk of a
landing.

The objections to an immediate landing on the part of the ladies did
not, however, apply with equal force in the case of us of the sterner
sex; I therefore ordered the gig to be lowered, and, arming myself and
each of the crew with a brace of loaded revolvers, prepared to make a
preliminary trip as far as the creek referred to in the cryptogram.
Upon hearing me give the order to get the boat ready, Sir Edgar asked
permission to accompany me; and a few minutes later we shoved off, and
headed up the river.

The waterway, as far up as we could see, maintained a tolerably even
width of some two hundred yards, the deepest water being close alongside
the western shore, which was very steep, and wooded clear down to the
water's _edge_. Here, with the assistance of the hand-lead, I found a
minimum depth of two fathoms; but the bottom was very uneven, and in a
few places I found as much as five fathoms of water. From these depths
the bottom seemed to slope pretty uniformly upward towards the opposite
or eastern bank, the slope of which was much more gentle, a narrow
margin of very fine white sand intervening between the water and the
deep, rich, chocolate-coloured soil. The varieties of trees and shrubs
were countless, ranging all the way from the smallest and most delicate
flowering plants to magnificent forest giants, some of which must have
towered at least a hundred and fifty feet above the surface of the
ground.