h the aid of his spy-glass, pronounced to be a white eagle.

CHAPTER XLII

THE VALLEY OF SERPENTS

We now equipped an expedition to explore the Ruby Mountains, of which I
was appointed leader. Hartog wished to come with us, but I persuaded
him that his place was on board our ship, which, remembering how the
Spaniards had, on a former occasion, pirated the vessel, he could not
deny.

"You are right, Peter," he said, when we had argued the matter. "We
cannot both go, and, since I am captain of the 'Golden Seahorse', I
clearly perceive my duty is to stand by her through fair and foul."

The matter being thus concluded, I took command of the party for the
shore. In the forenoon we rowed for the beach in two pinnaces, well
manned and armed. In all the places where we had landed we had treated
the blacks with kindness, offering them pieces of iron, strings of
beads, and pieces of cloth, hoping by these means to win their
friendship, and to be allowed to explore the country; but, in spite of
our friendly overtures, the blacks received us everywhere as enemies,
and nowhere more so than in this land of pygmies and giants. We
therefore determined to waste no more time in making useless efforts
for peace, but to meet force with force. Twelve men, well armed, we
considered to be a match for all the savages we were likely to
encounter during a day's march inland.

We had brought with us some coils of stout rope in order to assist us
in descending from the mountain heights into the valleys below, for I
did not place much reliance upon the fable of the eagles and the pieces
of fresh meat as a means to procure the rubies which it was said were
washed down by torrential rains at certain seasons. If rubies were to
be obtained, I argued, it must be by a more practical method than that
employed by Marco Polo's men. Besides, we had no fresh meat with which
to give Polo's experiment a trial.

After our recent brush with the natives these wild men gave us a wide
berth, and we saw no sign of them on our way to the mountains, to which
we came after two hours of walking. The sides of these mountains are
rocky, with no verdure of any kind upon them except a species of
stubble which grows in patches. When we came to the top of one of these
hills, we looked down a sheer cliff into the valley. I never before saw
any place so inaccessible to man. Nothing without wings, it appeared,
could descend into those depths. After exploring the mo