. "Oh, nonsense! Wildest of the wild? Why,
this is nothing to what we've got to come. We haven't seen a regular
good mountain yet."

"No, nor yet a wild beast. I thought we should have had plenty of
adventures with them by now."

"Oh, that's what you mean, is it?" cried Griggs, with mock seriousness,
giving Chris a peculiar look at the same time, as if asking him to back
up any assertions that he might make. "You expected that we would spend
half our time shooting lions and stalking tigers?"

"Yes," said Ned, passing his hand over his eyes and shaking his head, as
if the heat had made him sleepy and giddy. "_No, no_!" he added
hastily. "Of course I know that there are no lions and tigers here.
You're laughing at me."

"Well, it's enough to make a cat laugh to hear you go on finding fault,
when here we are in a regular wonderful country, such as I should never
have expected to find so soon. Of course I know that it wouldn't do for
a plantation, but here we are, just at the beginning of rising ground,
and a mile or two further we shall be all amongst rocks and stones, and,
for all we can tell, we shall come upon the sugar up yonder among those
mountains rising up as if they were growing out of what was a plain."

"Sugar? What sugar?" said Ned, staring.

"Well, the gold amongst the three sugar-loaf mountains shown on the
chart."

"I only wish we could find it," said Chris.

"Well, have patience, and the more patience you use up the more you'll
want. We shan't find the gold without."

"But I'm like Ned," said Chris thoughtfully; "I think as he does, that
it does seem wonderful that there should be such a lot of regularly
useless land in the world. Look at this: as far as we can see it's so
salt and dry that nothing will grow. Stones and sand, and sand and
stones, and all of no use at all."

"Who says so?" said Griggs coolly.

"Why, I do; you heard me."

"Yes, you say so, but what do you know about it? You say it's of no use
because it's of no use to you; but you know nothing at all about what
may be underneath all this sand and stone."

"Nothing at all; not even water," cried Chris.

"You don't know. There may be gold or silver or lead, tin or copper, or
some of those minerals that chemists and such folk use. I don't like to
hear you grumble, my lad, about things when you've only just looked and
not tried. What about precious stones--diamonds and rubies?"

"Or pearls perhaps," said Ned, w