able George had
provided for them.

The meal, however, like most other matters, had an end at last; and the
travellers felt themselves free to follow the bent of their impatient
inclinations. But the expedition upon which they were about to enter
was one not to be undertaken without due foresight and preparation. It
was only to be a preliminary exploration, it is true, only a journey of
some three or four miles into the interior; but the country and the
climate having already proved so extraordinarily at variance with all
their preconceived ideas, who could say what new and strange forms of
animal life might not possibly be lurking within those vast forest
depths? It therefore behoved them to adopt at least a reasonable amount
of precaution, and so to equip themselves that, in the event of their
encountering new and hitherto unsuspected dangers, they might not find
themselves in a wholly defenceless condition.

The question of the kind of clothing to be worn was soon settled. The
temperature stood at the extraordinary height (for that latitude) of
fifty-seven degrees Fahrenheit; and the air, actually cool and bracing,
felt almost oppressively warm to them after the rigours of the
paleocrystic ice-field; they therefore donned a suit of rough
serviceable cloth of moderate thickness, and stout waterproof leather
walking boots. Then, for arms, as they were merely going on a
reconnoitring and not a hunting expedition, they decided to take their
large-bore repeating rifles, which, with the explosive shells
constituting their ammunition, would enable the explorers to face
anything. And lastly, as accident or design might cause them to extend
their ramble beyond its originally intended limits, they adopted the
precaution of providing themselves each with a small light knapsack of
provisions. Thus equipped they proceeded on deck, raised the two boats
with their davits out of the snug below-deck compartments in which they
had hitherto been concealed, and, lowering the smaller boat of the two,
stepped into her, and were quickly conveyed to the shore.

It was with a curiously mingled feeling of awe and exultation that they
sprang from the boat to the strand, and planted their feet for the first
time upon this hitherto unknown and unvisited ground.

"Behold!" exclaimed the baronet, pointing to their footprints in the
sand; "behold the first human footprints ever impressed upon this soil."
And stepping rapidly forward unti