t
the sight of it my knees knocked together. By St. Hubert, the beast was
sixty feet or more in length; its head was of the bigness of a barrel,
and its skin was of all the colours of the rainbow. Moreover, it seemed
to hold me with its eyes, for till it slipped away into the river I
could not move a foot.

Month after month we travelled thus, covering a matter of perhaps five
miles a day, since sometimes the country was open and we crossed it with
speed. Yet although our dangers were so many, strangely enough, during
all this time, even in that heat neither of us fell sick, as I think
because of the herb which Kari carried in his bag, that I found was
named _Coca_, whereof we obtained more as we went and ate from time to
time. Nor did we ever really suffer from starvation, since when we were
hungry we took more of this herb which supported us until we could
find food. These mercies I set down to the good offices of St. Hubert
watching from Heaven over me, his poor namesake and godson, though
perhaps the skill and courage of Kari which provided against everything
had something to do with them.

At length, in the ninth month of our travelling, as Kari reckoned it by
means of knots which he tied on pieces of native string, for I had long
lost count of time, we came to the borders of a great desert that the
natives said stretched southwards for a hundred leagues and more and
was without water. Moreover, to the east of this desert rose a chain
of mountains bordered by precipices up which no man could climb. Here,
therefore, it seemed as though our journey must end, since Kari had no
knowledge of how he crossed or went round this desert in his madness of
bygone years, if indeed he ever travelled that road at all, a matter of
which I was not certain.

For a week or more we remained among the tribe that lived in a beautiful
watered valley upon the borders of this desert, wondering what we should
do. For my part I was by now so tired of travelling upon an endless
quest that I should have been glad to stay among that tribe, a very
gentle and friendly people, who like all the rest believed me to be a
god, and make my home there till I died. But this was not Kari's mind,
which was set fiercely upon winning back to his own country that he
believed to lie towards the south.

Day by day we sat there regaining our strength upon the good food of
that valley, and staring first at the desert to the south, then at the
precipices on o