An ocean voyage is an excellent time for discussion. Now we had no
eavesdroppers, we could loll and loaf in our deck chairs and talk and
talk--there was nothing else to do. Our absolute lack of facts only made
the field of discussion wider.

"We'll leave papers with our consul where the yacht stays," Terry
planned. "If we don't come back in--say a month--they can send a relief
party after us."

"A punitive expedition," I urged. "If the ladies do eat us we must make
reprisals."

"They can locate that last stopping place easy enough, and I've made a
sort of chart of that lake and cliff and waterfall."

"Yes, but how will they get up?" asked Jeff.

"Same way we do, of course. If three valuable American citizens are lost
up there, they will follow somehow--to say nothing of the glittering
attractions of that fair land--let's call it 'Feminisia,'" he broke off.

"You're right, Terry. Once the story gets out, the river will crawl with
expeditions and the airships rise like a swarm of mosquitoes." I laughed
as I thought of it. "We've made a great mistake not to let Mr. Yellow
Press in on this. Save us! What headlines!"

"Not much!" said Terry grimly. "This is our party. We're going to find
that place alone."

"What are you going to do with it when you do find it--if you do?" Jeff
asked mildly.

Jeff was a tender soul. I think he thought that country--if there was
one--was just blossoming with roses and babies and canaries and tidies,
and all that sort of thing.

And Terry, in his secret heart, had visions of a sort of sublimated
summer resort--just Girls and Girls and Girls--and that he was going to
be--well, Terry was popular among women even when there were other men
around, and it's not to be wondered at that he had pleasant dreams of
what might happen. I could see it in his eyes as he lay there, looking
at the long blue rollers slipping by, and fingering that impressive
mustache of his.

But I thought--then--that I could form a far clearer idea of what was
before us than either of them.

"You're all off, boys," I insisted. "If there is such a place--and there
does seem some foundation for believing it--you'll find it's built on a
sort of matriarchal principle, that's all. The men have a separate cult
of their own, less socially developed than the women, and make them an
annual visit--a sort of wedding call. This is a condition known to have
existed--here's just a survival. They've got some peculiarly isolate