with islands about its shores, but quite clear of
them in the middle. In its greatest length it would be about twelve
miles long, while its breadth varied from five miles to a few hundred
yards. Its sloping shores were covered with the most luxuriant
vegetation, which reached upwards almost unbroken, but changing in
character with the altitude, until there was a regular series of
transitions, from the palms and bananas on the shores of the lake, to
the sparse and scanty pines and firs that clung to the upper slopes
of the mountains.

The lake received about a score of streams, many of which began as
waterfalls far up the mountains, while two of them at least had their
origin in the eternal snows of the northern and southern peaks. So
far as they could see from the air-ship, the lake had no outlet, and
they were therefore obliged to conclude that its surplus waters
escaped by some subterranean channel, probably to reappear again as a
river welling from the earth, it might be, hundreds of miles away.

Of inhabitants there were absolutely no traces to be seen, from the
direction in which the _Ariel_ was approaching. Animals and birds
there seemed to be in plenty, but of man no trace was visible, until
in her flight along the valley the _Ariel_ opened up one of the many
smaller valleys formed by the ribs of the encircling mountains.

There, close by a clump of magnificent tree-ferns, and nestling under
a precipitous ridge, covered from base to summit with dark-green
foliage and brilliantly-coloured flowers, was a well-built log-hut
surrounded by an ample verandah, also almost smothered in flowers,
and surmounted by a flagstaff from which fluttered the tattered
remains of a Union-Jack.

In a little clearing to one side of the hut, a man, who might very
well have passed for a modern edition of Robinson Crusoe, so far as
his attire was concerned, was busily skinning an antelope which hung
from a pole suspended from two trees. His back was turned towards
them, and so swift and silent had been their approach that he did not
hear the soft whirring of the propellers until they were within some
three hundred yards of him.

Then, just as he looked round to see whence the sound came, Andrew
Smith, who was standing in the bows near the conning tower, put his
hands to his mouth and roared out a regular sailor's hail--

"Thomas Jackson, ahoy!"

The man straightened himself up, stared open-mouthed for a moment at
the strange app