I am writing this account day by day, hoping that before I reach the end, I will be able to say that the darkness around us has finally begun to lift.
We were still trapped on the plateau, with no clear way down. The frustration was sometimes almost unbearable.
Yet I could imagine that one day we might look back on our imprisonment differently. Perhaps we would be grateful that we had been forced to remain here long enough to see more of the extraordinary land and the strange creatures that lived upon it.
The victory over the ape-men had completely changed our situation.
From that moment on, we were effectively the masters of the plateau. The Indians looked at us with a strange mixture of gratitude and fear. In their eyes, our rifles were almost magical weapons, and with them we had helped destroy their ancient enemies.
They probably would have been happy to see us leave, since we were such powerful and unpredictable visitors. But they had no idea how to help us get down to the plains.
From what we could understand through their gestures, there had once been a tunnel leading through the cliffs. We had seen its lower entrance from below. The Indians and ape-men must both have used it at different times to reach the plateau, and Maple White and his companion had apparently come up the same way.
Unfortunately, a terrible earthquake the previous year had caused the upper part of the tunnel to collapse completely.
Whenever we tried to explain that we wanted to descend, the Indians simply shook their heads and shrugged.
We could not tell whether they genuinely had no way to help us or whether they simply did not want us to leave.
After the battle, the surviving ape-people were driven across the plateau toward the Indian caves.
Their cries were dreadful.
From then on, they lived near the caves under the control of the Indians, almost like slaves.
At night we sometimes heard their long, mournful cries rising from the trees. It sounded as if some ancient prophet were mourning the destruction of Ape Town and remembering the power that his people had once possessed.
Their new life was simple enough.
They chopped wood.
They carried water.
They served the people who had defeated them.
Two days after the battle, we returned across the plateau with our Indian allies and made our camp below their cliffs.
The Indians wanted us to live inside their caves with them.
Lord John refused.
“No,” he said firmly. “If they’re ever tempted to turn against us, we’d be completely in their hands.”
So we kept our own camp and our weapons close at hand.
At the same time, we remained on friendly terms with them and often visited their caves.
The caves themselves were fascinating.
We never discovered whether they had been carved by human hands or formed naturally.
They were all located along the same layer of rock, between the red volcanic basalt above and the hard granite below.
Their entrances were about eighty feet above the ground.
Long stone stairways led up to them, but the steps were so narrow and steep that no large animal could climb them.
Inside, the caves were warm and dry.
Some extended straight into the hillside for a considerable distance.
Their smooth gray walls were covered with drawings made with burnt sticks.
The Indians had drawn the animals of the plateau—dinosaurs, iguanodons, fish-lizards, and many other creatures.
If every living creature on the plateau disappeared tomorrow, a future explorer could still learn a great deal about this lost world simply by studying those walls.
We had begun to believe that humans had finally established complete control over the plateau.
After all, the Indians could keep enormous iguanodons as tame herds. They could drive them around like cattle and eventually kill them for food.
But we were soon to discover that mankind’s position was not nearly as secure as we had imagined.
We were still here only because the other creatures allowed us to be.
Three days after we established our camp near the caves, disaster struck.
Challenger and Summerlee had gone to the lake.
Several Indians were helping them hunt and capture specimens of the great reptiles.
Lord John and I had stayed behind.
Many Indians were scattered across the grassy slope in front of the caves, going about their ordinary business.
Suddenly a terrible cry rang out.
“Stoa!”
The word came from every direction.
Men, women, and children began running wildly toward the caves.
They raced up the narrow stairways, pushing and climbing over one another in their desperate attempt to reach safety.
Others were already standing on the rocks above, waving their arms and shouting for us to come up.
Lord John and I immediately grabbed our magazine rifles and ran outside.
We still did not know what was happening.
Then a group of twelve or fifteen Indians burst from the nearby trees.
They were running for their lives.
Behind them came two of the most terrifying creatures I had ever seen.
They were the same monsters that had frightened our camp and chased me during my earlier journey.
They looked rather like gigantic, hideous toads.
They moved by making enormous leaps.
But their size was almost impossible to believe.
Each was larger than the biggest elephant.
We had only seen them at night before, which made sense because they were normally nocturnal creatures. These two had evidently been disturbed from their hiding places.
In daylight, we could see them clearly for the first time.
Their skins were covered with strange patches and warts.
They had a wet, fish-like shine, and the sunlight created shifting rainbow colors across their enormous bodies as they moved.
We had no time to admire them.
The monsters quickly caught the fleeing Indians.
Then the killing began.
Their method was brutally simple.
They would throw their enormous weight forward onto a person, crushing him beneath them, then immediately spring after the next victim.
The Indians screamed and ran desperately, but there was no way they could escape.
One after another they were knocked down.
By the time Lord John and I reached the scene, fewer than six were still alive.
We tried to help.
But our rifles seemed almost useless.
We stood about two hundred yards away and emptied our magazines into the monsters.
Bullet after bullet struck them.
The creatures barely seemed to notice.
Their primitive nervous systems were so different from ours that ordinary gunshot wounds did not stop them.
The bullets could injure their bodies, but they did not immediately destroy the systems that controlled their movements.
The only useful thing our rifles accomplished was to frighten and distract them.
The flashes and explosions forced the monsters to hesitate, giving the Indians and us a few precious seconds to reach the stone steps.
But the Indians had another weapon.
Their arrows were coated with poison made from strophanthus and further treated with decaying animal matter.
Normally such poisoned arrows were not very effective against these creatures.
The poison acted slowly because the monsters had such sluggish circulation.
A hunter would usually be killed long before the poison could weaken the animal.
But this time the situation was different.
The two monsters followed us all the way to the foot of the steps.
Then arrows began flying down from every opening in the cliffs above.
The Indians fired again and again.
Soon the creatures were covered with arrows.
Still they showed no obvious pain.
They clawed at the steps and roared with rage, desperately trying to climb toward their victims.
They managed to scramble up a few feet.
Then they slipped back to the ground.
Again and again they tried.
Finally, the poison began to work.
One monster gave a deep, rumbling groan and lowered its enormous head to the earth.
The other began running in a strange circle.
It let out a high, miserable cry.
Then it collapsed.
For several minutes it twisted and writhed in agony.
At last it became completely still.
The Indians erupted in celebration.
They poured from the caves, shouting and dancing around the bodies.
Two of the most dangerous creatures on the plateau had been killed.
That night, the Indians cut up and carried away the bodies.
They did not eat them because the poison was still active.
Instead, they removed the carcasses because they feared the bodies might spread disease.
But the enormous hearts were left behind.
Each heart was as large as a cushion.
Even after the creatures were dead, the hearts continued to beat slowly and steadily.
They seemed to possess a terrible life of their own.
It took three more days before the nervous systems finally stopped functioning and the hearts became still.
There are many other things I hope to write about one day.
If I ever have a proper desk, proper writing materials, and something better than a worn pencil and a nearly destroyed notebook, I will tell the full story of our life among the Accala Indians and everything we discovered in this extraordinary land.
I know I will remember it.
Every day, every event, every strange sight is burned into my memory so deeply that nothing could ever erase it.
I will tell about the moonlit night on the great lake when a young ichthyosaurus became tangled in one of the Indian fishing nets.
It was a remarkable creature.
From a distance it looked almost like a mixture of a seal and a fish. Its eyes were protected by bony coverings on both sides of its snout, and it even had a third eye on the top of its head.
The animal fought so violently that it nearly overturned our canoe before we managed to tow it to shore.
That same night, a green water snake shot from the reeds and wrapped itself around the steersman of Challenger’s canoe.
I will also describe the strange white creature that lived in the terrible swamp east of the lake.
Even now we cannot say whether it was a mammal or a reptile.
It moved through the darkness with a faint glow, almost as though its body carried its own weak light.
The Indians were terrified of the creature and refused to approach the swamp.
We went there twice.
Both times we saw it.
But the marsh was so deep that we could never get close enough to study it properly.
It was larger than a cow and gave off a strange, unpleasant musky smell.
Then there was the enormous bird that once chased Challenger into the rocks.
It was far taller than an ostrich.
It ran instead of flying and had a long neck like a vulture, with a terrible hooked beak.
As Challenger climbed toward safety, the creature struck at him.
Its beak sliced through the heel of his boot as easily as a chisel cutting wood.
Fortunately, this time modern weapons proved superior.
The enormous bird was about twelve feet tall from head to foot.
According to Challenger, it was a phororachus.
Lord John’s rifle brought it down in a storm of feathers and kicking legs.
Even after it fell, its two hard yellow eyes continued to stare upward.
I hope that one day I will see its flattened, vicious skull displayed among Lord John’s trophies at the Albany.
And there was also the toxodon—the gigantic ten-foot guinea-pig-like animal with enormous projecting teeth.
We killed one early one morning while it was drinking beside the lake.
All of these creatures deserve a fuller account.
But I also want to remember the quieter moments.
There were beautiful summer evenings when we lay together in the long grass beside the forest, enjoying each other’s company.
The sky above us was deep blue.
Strange birds flew overhead.
Unknown animals cautiously crawled out of their burrows to watch us.
The bushes around us were heavy with delicious fruit.
Beautiful unfamiliar flowers appeared among the grass.
There were also long moonlit nights when we lay beside the great lake and watched the silver surface shimmer beneath the moon.
Every so often, some enormous creature would plunge into the water.
Great circles of waves would spread across the surface.
Far below, in the dark depths, we could sometimes see the faint green glow of some unknown creature moving through the water.
These are the memories that I will someday describe in full.
But perhaps you are wondering why we spent so much time observing this strange world instead of working every hour to find a way home.
The answer is simple.
Every one of us was trying to escape.
We had not forgotten the outside world.
We had simply failed to find a way down.
We quickly discovered one important fact.
The Indians would not help us.
In every other respect, they were our friends.
They treated us almost like honored masters.
But whenever we suggested building something that might help us escape, they refused.
We wanted them to help us make a wooden plank long enough to bridge the gap.
They refused.
We asked for leather strips or lengths of jungle vine so that we could make ropes.
Again, they refused.
They would simply smile, shake their heads, and make it clear that the discussion was over.
Even the old chief would not change his mind.
Only Maretas, the young man we had rescued, seemed genuinely sorry that he could not help us.
He looked at us sadly and used gestures to show that he understood our frustration.
Since our victory over the ape-men, the Indians had begun to think of us as supernatural beings.
They believed that victory came from the strange weapons we carried.
As long as we remained with them, they believed they would continue to enjoy good fortune.
They even offered each of us a wife from among their people and a cave of our own if we would stay forever.
They treated us kindly.
But we had begun to suspect that if they realized we were seriously planning to leave, they might try to stop us.
So we kept our plans secret.
Dinosaurs were still a danger, although usually only at night because most of them were nocturnal.
Even so, I had twice returned to our old camp during the previous three weeks.
Zambo was still there below the cliffs, keeping watch.
Each time I looked across the enormous plain, hoping to see some sign of the rescue party we had been waiting for.
But the land remained empty.
The cactus-covered plain stretched away toward the distant cane-brake.
Zambo never lost hope.
“They’ll come soon now, Massa Malone,” he would call.
“Before another week pass, the Indians will come back with a rope and bring you down.”
His confidence was infectious.
On my second visit, I had to spend the night away from my companions.
The following day I was returning along the familiar route when I reached a point about a mile from the pterodactyl swamp.
Then I saw something extraordinary approaching me.
It looked like a walking cage.
A man was inside a framework made from bent pieces of cane.
The structure surrounded him on every side and had a shape like a bell.
As I came closer, I realized who it was.
It was Lord John Roxton.
When he saw me, he stepped out of his strange cage and came toward me laughing.
Yet there was something slightly embarrassed about his expression.
“Well, young fellah,” he said, “I never expected to run into you up here.”
“What on earth are you doing?” I asked.
“Paying a visit to my friends, the pterodactyls.”
“Why?”
“They’re interestin’ creatures, don’t you think?”
He grinned.
“Not very friendly, though. They have a nasty habit of attacking strangers, as you may remember.”
He tapped the cane framework.
“So I built this little contraption to keep them from getting too close.”
“But why are you going into the swamp at all?”
Lord John looked at me carefully.
For a moment, he seemed unsure how much to tell me.
“Do you really think professors are the only people who are allowed to be curious?” he asked.
“I’m studying the little beauties. That’s all you need to know.”
“No offense.”
His good humor returned immediately.
“No offense, young fellah.”
“I’m trying to get a young pterodactyl for Challenger. That’s one of my little projects.”
He pointed toward the swamp.
“But I don’t need company. I’m safe inside this cage, while you wouldn’t be.”
“I’ll see you back at camp tonight.”
He turned and disappeared into the trees, still walking inside his ridiculous protective cage.
If Lord John’s behavior was strange, Challenger’s was even stranger.
He seemed to have become extremely popular with the Indian women.
In fact, he had to carry a large palm branch and wave it at them whenever they crowded around him too closely, as though he were trying to drive away a swarm of flies.
The sight was almost impossible to take seriously.
Challenger would march along like some comic-opera sultan, waving his enormous palm leaf as a symbol of authority.
His black beard stuck out proudly.
His toes pointed outward with every step.
Behind him came a group of fascinated Indian girls, watching him with wide eyes while dressed in their simple bark-cloth clothing.
It was one of the funniest sights I knew I would remember for the rest of my life.
Summerlee had taken an entirely different approach.
He was fascinated by the birds and insects of the plateau.
He spent most of his time collecting, cleaning, and preserving specimens.
The rest of his time was spent complaining about Challenger and blaming him for our failure to escape.
Challenger, meanwhile, had developed another habit.
Every morning he would disappear alone.
Then he would return occasionally with an expression of enormous importance, as though the fate of the entire human race rested on his shoulders.
One day he finally revealed what he had been doing.
He appeared carrying his usual palm branch, with several admiring Indian women following behind him.
Then he led us to a hidden workshop.
It was located in a small clearing in the middle of a palm grove.
At the center was one of the boiling mud geysers I had already described.
Around it lay several long strips of leather cut from iguanodon hide.
There was also a huge collapsed sheet of material.
We soon realized that it was the dried and carefully cleaned stomach of one of the giant fish-lizards from the lake.
Challenger had turned it into a giant bag.
One end had been sewn shut.
The other had a small opening.
Several bamboo tubes had been inserted into that opening, and their other ends were connected to clay funnels placed over the bubbling mud.
The funnels collected the gas rising from the geyser and directed it into the huge bag.
Slowly, the empty membrane began to swell.
As it grew larger, it started to pull upward.
Challenger tied it firmly to the surrounding trees.
Within half an hour, the thing had become a large gas-filled balloon.
The ropes were already straining under the upward force.
Challenger stood beside it smiling proudly.
He stroked his beard like a father admiring his newborn child.
Summerlee finally broke the silence.
“You don’t seriously expect us to go up in that thing, Challenger?”
“My dear Summerlee,” Challenger replied, “I intend to demonstrate its capabilities so convincingly that you will have no hesitation in trusting yourself to it.”
“You can forget that right now,” Summerlee said firmly.
“Nothing on earth could persuade me to take such a ridiculous risk.”
He turned to Lord John.
“Surely you aren’t going to encourage this madness?”
Lord John examined the balloon with interest.
“I call it bloody clever,” he said.
“I’d certainly like to see whether it works.”
“So you shall,” said Challenger.
“For several days I have been concentrating on the problem of getting us down from these cliffs.”
“We already know that we cannot climb down safely.”
“The original tunnel is blocked.”
“We cannot build a bridge to the pinnacle from which we first arrived.”
“So how else are we to descend?”
He gestured proudly toward the balloon.
“I discovered that the geyser produces free hydrogen. Once I understood that, the idea of a balloon was obvious.”
“The real difficulty was finding a material strong enough to contain the gas.”
He placed a hand against the enormous membrane.
“Then I realized that the internal organs of these giant reptiles could provide exactly what I needed.”
He spread his arms.
“And here is the result.”
By now the gas bag had become quite large.
It was pulling hard against the ropes.
“Midsummer madness!” Summerlee muttered.
Lord John was delighted.
“Clever old dear, isn’t he?” he whispered to me.
Then he called out:
“What about a basket?”
“The basket will come next,” Challenger replied.
“I already have a design for it.”
He looked pleased with himself.
“But for now, I only wish to demonstrate that the balloon can lift a substantial weight.”
“All of us, surely?” Lord John asked.
“No.”
Challenger shook his head.
“My plan is for each man to descend separately, rather like a parachute.”
“The balloon will then be pulled back up so that the next man can use it.”
“If it can safely carry one man down, then it will have accomplished its purpose.”
He brought out a large piece of basalt.
A rope could be attached to it.
It was the same rope we had brought up with us when we climbed the pinnacle.
It was more than a hundred feet long.
Although it was thin, it was extremely strong.
Challenger had also prepared a wide leather harness with numerous straps.
He placed it over the top of the balloon so that the weight would be spread across a large area.
Then he attached the basalt to the straps.
The rope hung from the stone, and Challenger wrapped the other end several times around his arm.
He smiled confidently.
“Now, gentlemen, I shall demonstrate the lifting power of my invention.”
He cut the ropes holding the balloon to the trees.
What happened next nearly killed all of us.
The inflated membrane shot upward with terrifying speed.
Challenger was yanked off the ground instantly.
I grabbed him around the waist.
A moment later, I was being lifted too.
Lord John seized my legs in a grip like a steel trap.
But I could feel him being dragged upward as well.
For one horrifying moment, I imagined the four of us floating through the sky like a chain of sausages above the land we had explored.
Fortunately, the rope had a limit.
The balloon’s lifting power did not.
There was a sudden crack.
The rope broke.
We crashed back onto the ground in a tangled heap.
When we finally managed to stand, we looked up.
Far away in the deep blue sky was a tiny dark object.
The lump of basalt was still rising.
Challenger rubbed his injured arm.
Then, incredibly, he smiled.
“Splendid!”
“A thoroughly successful demonstration!”
“I could hardly have hoped for such a result.”
He looked at us triumphantly.
“Within a week, gentlemen, I shall have another balloon ready.”
“And this time, I promise you, it will carry each of us safely and comfortably through the first stage of our journey home.”
Everything I have described so far happened exactly as I have written it.
But now I must finish my story from the old camp, where Zambo had been waiting for us for so long.
Our problems and dangers on the plateau were already behind us.
We had escaped.
Not in the way we had expected, but we were safe.
Within six weeks or perhaps two months, we expected to be back in London.
It was even possible that this letter would arrive only a little before we did.
Our thoughts were already turning toward the great city we had missed so badly.
We longed to return to the people and places we loved.
The great change in our fortunes came on the very evening of Challenger’s disastrous balloon experiment.
I have already mentioned that Maretas, the young chief we had rescued, was the only Indian who seemed genuinely willing to help us escape.
He alone did not want to keep us prisoner on the plateau.
That evening, after darkness had fallen, he secretly came down to our little camp.
Without saying a word, he handed me a small piece of tree bark.
He had always shown particular affection toward me, perhaps because I was closer to his age than the others.
He pointed solemnly toward the row of caves above us.
Then he put a finger to his lips.
Keep this secret.
With that, he slipped away and returned to his people.
I carried the piece of bark into the firelight.
We examined it together.
It was about a foot square.
On its inner surface were a series of strange lines drawn neatly in charcoal.
At first they looked almost like a primitive musical score.
“Whatever this means, I’m sure it’s important,” I said.
“I could see it in his face when he gave it to me.”
“Unless we’ve discovered a primitive practical joker,” Summerlee replied.
“That would certainly be one of the earliest signs of human civilization.”
Challenger studied the markings carefully.
“It’s clearly a form of writing.”
Lord John leaned closer.
“Looks like one of those puzzle competitions in the newspapers.”
Then he suddenly grabbed the bark.
“By George! I think I’ve got it.”
He counted the markings.
“Look here. How many marks are there?”
“Eighteen,” I said.
“Exactly.”
He pointed toward the cliffs.
“And how many cave openings are there above us?”
“Eighteen.”
“Maretas pointed at the caves when he gave you this.”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s obvious. This is a map of the caves.”
He examined it again.
“Look at the pattern. Some of the caves are short. Some go farther back. Some branch off.”
He pointed to one particular mark.
“And there’s a cross here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“It marks one cave that goes much deeper than the others.”
I suddenly understood.
“One that goes all the way through?”
“Exactly,” Challenger said.
“If that cave really passes through the mountain, then Maretas must have been trying to tell us something important.”
“Otherwise, why would he secretly draw our attention to it?”
“If it connects with the other side of the cliffs, we might only have about a hundred feet to descend.”
“A hundred feet,” Summerlee muttered.
“Our rope is still more than a hundred feet long,” I said.
“We could do it.”
“What about the Indians?” Summerlee asked.
“There are no Indians in those caves,” I replied.
“They use them as storage rooms and barns.”
“Why don’t we go up there now and investigate?”
The Indians used a particular kind of dry, oily wood from an araucaria tree as torches.
We each took a piece and climbed the weed-covered steps toward the cave marked on the map.
The cave appeared to be empty.
Only enormous bats flew around us as we entered.
We did not want the Indians to notice what we were doing, so we continued in darkness for some distance.
After passing several bends, we finally lit our torches.
The tunnel was beautiful.
The walls were smooth and gray.
Ancient symbols covered them.
The ceiling curved gracefully overhead.
White sand covered the floor.
We hurried deeper into the cave.
Then we suddenly stopped.
A solid wall of rock blocked the passage.
There was not even a crack large enough for a mouse.
Our hopes collapsed.
There was no way through.
We stood silently staring at the rock.
It was not the result of some recent collapse like the old tunnel.
The wall looked exactly like the natural walls around it.
This passage had always been a dead end.
Challenger refused to give up.
“Never mind, gentlemen.”
“You still have my balloon.”
Summerlee groaned.
“Could we have chosen the wrong cave?” I asked.
Lord John pointed at the map.
“No, young fellah.”
“Seventeenth from the right and second from the left.”
“This is definitely the one.”
I stared at the mark on the bark.
Then suddenly an idea came to me.
“I’ve got it!”
“Come with me!”
I hurried back toward the entrance with my torch.
“Here,” I said, pointing at the ground.
“These are the marks we made when we first lit our torches.”
“Exactly,” said Lord John.
“The map shows that this cave branches.”
“We came in darkness and walked straight past the branch before we lit the torches.”
“If we go back toward the entrance, the longer passage should be on our right.”
We followed the passage.
I was right.
We had gone less than thirty yards when a huge black opening appeared in the wall.
We turned into it.
The new passage was much larger than the first.
We hurried forward, barely able to contain our excitement.
For hundreds of yards we continued through the darkness.
Then something appeared ahead.
At first it looked like a wall of red light.
A steady glow filled the passage.
It seemed as though a curtain of fire had been stretched across the tunnel.
We rushed toward it.
There was no heat.
No sound.
No movement.
The strange light simply shone across the passage, illuminating the walls and making the white sand sparkle like crushed jewels.
As we approached, the shape became clearer.
It was a round opening.
“The moon!” Lord John cried.
“By George, boys! We’re through!”
He was right.
The full moon was shining directly through an opening in the cliff.
The hole was small, no larger than a window, but it was more than enough.
We pushed our heads through and looked down.
The descent did not appear too difficult.
The ground below was not very far away.
It was no wonder we had never noticed this opening from the plain. The cliffs curved over it, and from below the idea of climbing toward that spot would have seemed impossible.
We carefully studied the route.
With our rope, we were confident we could get down.
Then we hurried back to camp to prepare for our escape the following evening.
Everything had to be done quickly and secretly.
Even at this final moment, we feared the Indians might try to stop us.
We would leave most of our supplies behind.
Only our guns and ammunition would come with us.
Challenger, however, had collected a large amount of equipment that he desperately wanted to take home.
There was also one particular package that I cannot describe.
Moving it was an enormous amount of work.
The day seemed to pass painfully slowly.
Finally, darkness came.
We were ready.
With great effort, we carried our belongings up the steps.
Then we stopped and looked back one last time.
The land below us was strange and beautiful.
Someday, I feared, hunters, explorers, and prospectors would arrive and destroy its mystery.
But to us it would always remain a place of dreams.
We had risked our lives here.
We had suffered here.
We had learned more here than we had ever imagined possible.
It was our land now, at least in memory.
To our left, the neighboring caves glowed with warm firelight.
From the slopes below came the laughter and singing of the Indians.
Beyond them stretched the dark forest.
The great central lake shimmered faintly in the distance.
It was the home of countless strange monsters.
Then a strange cry came from somewhere in the darkness.
Some unknown animal was calling.
It sounded almost like the land itself was saying goodbye.
We turned away.
Then we entered the cave that would lead us home.
Two hours later, all of us, along with our belongings, had reached the bottom of the cliffs.
Apart from Challenger’s enormous luggage, the descent had gone surprisingly well.
We left the troublesome equipment where we had descended and immediately started toward Zambo’s camp.
We reached the area in the early morning.
Then we stopped in amazement.
There was not one fire on the plain.
There were a dozen.
The rescue party had arrived.
Twenty Indians had come from the river.
They had brought stakes, ropes, and everything necessary to build a bridge across the chasm.
At last we would have no difficulty moving our remaining belongings.
And the next day, we would begin the journey back toward the Amazon.
So I end this account with a grateful heart.
We have seen wonders beyond anything we could have imagined.
We have also suffered enough to change all of us.
Each man has returned from this experience older, wiser, and in some way a better person.
Perhaps we will stop in Pará to repair our equipment before continuing our journey.
If we do, this letter will reach London before we do.
If we do not stop, then it may arrive on the very day we return.
Either way, my dear Mr. McArdle, I hope that very soon I will be able to shake your hand and tell you the whole story in person.