No wonder that the ginger-headed man with the silky voice and the free and easy manners was now looked upon with deep interest upon the banks of the great South American river, though the feelings he inspired were naturally mixed, since the gratitude of the natives was equaled by the resentment of those who desired to exploit them.  One useful result of his former experiences was that he could talk fluently in the Lingoa Geral, which is the peculiar talk, one-third Portuguese and two-thirds Indian, which is current all over Brazil.

I have said before that Lord John Roxton was a South Americomaniac.  He could not speak of that great country without ardor, and this ardor was infectious, for, ignorant as I was, he fixed my attention and stimulated my curiosity.  How I wish I could reproduce the glamour of his discourses, the peculiar mixture of accurate knowledge and of racy imagination which gave them their fascination, until even the Professor’s cynical and sceptical smile would gradually vanish from his thin face as he listened.  He would tell the history of the mighty river so rapidly explored (for some of the first conquerors of Peru actually crossed the entire continent upon its waters), and yet so unknown in regard to all that lay behind its ever-changing banks.

“What is there?” he would cry, pointing to the north.  “Wood and marsh and unpenetrated jungle.  Who knows what it may shelter?  And there to the south?  A wilderness of swampy forest, where no white man has ever been.  The unknown is up against us on every side.  Outside the narrow lines of the rivers what does anyone know?  Who will say what is possible in such a country?  Why should old man Challenger not be right?” At which direct defiance the stubborn sneer would reappear upon Professor Summerlee’s face, and he would sit, shaking his sardonic head in unsympathetic silence, behind the cloud of his briar-root pipe.

So much, for the moment, for my two white companions, whose characters and limitations will be further exposed, as surely as my own, as this narrative proceeds.  But already we have enrolled certain retainers who may play no small part in what is to come.  The first is a gigantic negro named Zambo, who is a black Hercules, as willing as any horse, and about as intelligent.  Him we enlisted at Para, on the recommendation of the steamship company, on whose vessels he had learned to speak a halting English.

It was at Para also that we engaged Gomez and Manuel, two half-breeds from up the river, just come down with a cargo of redwood.  They were swarthy fellows, bearded and fierce, as active and wiry as panthers.  Both of them had spent their lives in those upper waters of the Amazon which we were about to explore, and it was this recommendation which had caused Lord John to engage them.  One of them, Gomez, had the further advantage that he could speak excellent English.  These men were willing to act as our