th, and actually got them started on the work of
cutting the drainage ditch, that scheme having been chosen as the one
promising the quickest results and involving the least labour. By the
time that this was done the invalids were all recovered from their
sickness; and ten days after their arrival at the Catu village the
exploring party resumed their march, to the loudly expressed regret of
the inhabitants, who urgently pressed them to remain, and would quite
possibly have detained them by force, but for fear of exciting the anger
of the stone god.

The journey was resumed immediately after breakfast on a certain
morning, and before the hour for the first halt arrived the party began
to realise the truth of Yahiti's story that the route was full of
difficulties, if not of dangers; for it lay over rugged country so
thickly bestrewn with enormous boulders that Earle likened the journey
to the exploration of San Francisco immediately after the earthquake.
Of course, they went round the boulders when such a course was possible,
but it very frequently happened that long reefs of rock projected out of
the ground for miles on either hand, when, difficult though the task
might be, it became easier to climb up one side and down the other, than
to pass round. Two miles was the extent of their journey over that kind
of country which they were able to accomplish before sunset; and when at
length they camped they were little more than eight miles from the Catu
village.

To travel over such country was wearisome in the extreme, but there was
nothing for it but to push on, or else make a detour of unknown extent;
and this idea Earle would not entertain for a moment. On the following
day, therefore, they resumed their journey, although with every yard of
advance the difficulties appeared to grow more formidable.

It was about mid-morning when they reached the base of a cliff some
forty feet high that, being practically vertical, seemed to bar their
further progress, and after contemplating it for several minutes, Earle
decided to make the spot a halting place while he and Dick explored the
cliff in opposite directions in search of a practicable crossing.
Accordingly, while the natives were forming camp, the two white men,
taking their rifles and a few cartridges, set off along the foot of the
cliffs, Earle proceeding in a north-westerly direction, while Dick
proceeded toward the south-east.

The rock of which the cliff was forme