from the skull and teeth, had once been a creature of the
cat tribe, probably a leopard; while the skeletons of snakes--some of
them, from their dimensions, evidently pythons--were numerous. We also
came upon several carcasses of what I thought might have been boars;
but, if they were, the creatures must have been huge specimens of their
kind. There were also a few calcined skeletons of animals that must
have been as big as or bigger than a British dray-horse, but of very
different build. They did not suggest any animal with which I was
acquainted, and I was quite unable to put a name to them. We walked two
miles or more inland before turning back, but nowhere did I see anything
suggesting the destruction of so much as a solitary ape, at which I was
in nowise surprised, for I felt sure that the apes at least would be
able to keep well ahead of the fire, and make good their escape to West
Island. But West Island was, like Apes' Island, a fire-blackened ruin
as far as the eye could see, toward both the north and the south; and if
the fire had swept clean across the island to its western shore, it
would mean another holocaust, in which the apes also would be involved,
for there was no retreat, no sanctuary beyond West Island. It was too
late to push our investigations farther that day, but I resolved that on
the morrow I would see what the western side of West Island looked like.
Accordingly, eight o'clock in the morning of the following day found
Billy and me emerging from the North-west Channel into the lagoon, and
hauling round to the southward to skirt the western shore of West
Island.

We needed not to travel so far as this, however, to discover that at
least part of West Island had escaped the ravages of fire, for upon our
arrival off the south-western extremity of Cliff Island we saw that,
owing to the greatly increased width of the Middle Channel at that
point, the direction of the wind, and the peculiar configuration of the
island itself, an area which I roughly estimated at about a hundred
square miles, at its northern extremity, had been untouched by the
flames; and this area of forest, although probably little more than a
quarter of that of the whole island, would still afford cover for a good
many animals, had they the sense--or the instinct--to escape to it.

It was not until we had rounded the northern extremity of West Island
and had followed the west coast southward for a distance of about eleven
m