h, was not far from being to the following effect:

To wit, that two great kings reigned inland, either of them able to eat
up Hunko Jum and Bandeliah at a mouthful, but both of them too proud to
set foot upon land that was flat, or in water that was salt. They ruled
over two great nations called the Houlas, and the Quackwas, going out of
sight among great rivers and lands with clear water standing over them.
And if the white men could not understand this, it was because they
drank salt-water.

Moreover, they said that of these two kings, the king of the Houlas was
a woman, the most beautiful ever seen in all the world, and able to
jump over any man's head. But the king of the Quackwas was a man, and
although he had more than two thousand wives, and was taller by a
joint of a bamboo than Bandeliah--whose stature was at least six feet
four--yet nothing would be of any use to him, unless he could come to an
agreement with Mabonga, the queen of the Houlas, to split a durra straw
with him. But Mabonga was coy, and understanding men, as well as jumping
over them, would grant them no other favour than the acceptance of their
presents. However, the other great king was determined to have her
for his wife, if he abolished all the rest, and for this reason he had
caught and kept the lost Englishman as a medicine-man; and it was not
likely that he would kill him, until he failed or succeeded.

To further enquiries Bandeliah answered that to rescue the prisoner was
impossible. If it had been his own newest wife, he would not push out a
toe for her. The great king Golo lived up in high places that overlooked
the ground, as he would these white men, and his armies went like wind
and spread like fire. None of his warriors ate white man's flesh; they
were afraid it would make them cowardly.

A brave heart is generally tender in the middle, to make up for being so
firm outside, even as the Durian fruit is. Captain Southcombe had walked
the poop-deck of the Gwalior many a time, in the cool of the night, with
Erle Twemlow for his companion, and had taken a very warm liking to him.
So that when the survivors of the regiment were landed at Portsmouth,
this brave sailor travelled at his own cost to Springhaven, and told
the Rector the whole sad story, making it clear to him beyond all doubt,
that nothing whatever could be done to rescue the poor young man from
those savages, or even to ascertain his fate. For the Quackwas were an
inland