crossing, after the most appalling hardships, a vast waterless
steppe covered for the most part with dense thorn, coming at last
into a district that had probably never been previously entered
by any white man and which was known only in the legends of the
tribes whose country bordered it. Here were precipitous mountains,
well-watered plateaus, wide plains, and vast swampy morasses,
but neither the plains, nor the plateaus, nor the mountains were
accessible to him until after weeks of arduous effort he succeeded
in finding a spot where he might cross the morasses--a hideous
stretch infested by venomous snakes and other larger dangerous
reptiles. On several occasions he glimpsed at distances or by night
what might have been titanic reptilian monsters, but as there were
hippopotami, rhinoceri, and elephants in great numbers in and about
the marsh he was never positive that the forms he saw were not of
these.

When at last he stood upon firm ground after crossing the morasses
he realized why it was that for perhaps countless ages this territory
had defied the courage and hardihood of the heroic races of the
outer world that had, after innumerable reverses and unbelievable
suffering penetrated to practically every other region, from pole
to pole.

From the abundance and diversity of the game it might have appeared
that every known species of bird and beast and reptile had sought
here a refuge wherein they might take their last stand against the
encroaching multitudes of men that had steadily spread themselves
over the surface of the earth, wresting the hunting grounds from
the lower orders, from the moment that the first ape shed his hair
and ceased to walk upon his knuckles. Even the species with which