e. I now wished to show my generous
entertainers that I was grateful; so I raised my cup, bowed to all
of them, particularly the chief, and drank their health. They all
watched this ceremony with very sober faces, and I could not quite
make out whether they took my meaning or not. They certainly did not
look pleased, and it seemed to me as though they felt hurt at any
expression of gratitude, so I concluded for the future to abstain
from all such demonstrations.

Yet with every moment the manners of these people grew more
bewildering. It was strange, indeed, for me to find myself so suddenly
the centre of interest and of generous intentions. For a moment the
thought occurred to me that they regarded me as some wonderful being
with superior powers, and were trying to propitiate me by these
services; yet I soon saw that these services were not at all acts
of propitiation; they looked rather like those loving and profuse
attentions which a family showers down upon some dear one long absent
and at last returned, and with this my wonder grew greater than ever.

The galley had long since resumed her progress. I heard the steady
beat of the oars as they all moved in time, and at length the motion
ceased. The chief then signed to me and went out. I followed, and the
rest came after. And now as I emerged from the gloom of the cabin, I
found myself once more in the glorious light of day, and saw that we
had reached the land. The galley was hauled up alongside a stone quay,
and on the shore there were buildings and walls and trees and people.
The chief went ashore at once and I accompanied him. We walked for
some distance along a road with stone walls on either side, from
behind which there arose trees that from a distance had looked like
palms. I now found them to be giant ferns, arching overhead with their
broad fanlike leaves and branches in dense masses, making the roadway
quite dark in the shadow. Astonished as I was at the sight of these
trees, I soon forgot them in a still more astonishing sight, for after
going onward about a hundred paces I stopped, and found myself in a
wide space where four cross-roads met. Here there were three birds of
gigantic stature. They had vast bodies, short legs, short necks, and
seemed as large as an ordinary-sized ox. Their wings were short, and
evidently could not be used for flight; their beaks were like that of
a sea-gull; each one had a man on his back, and was harnessed to a
car. The c