داخل دنیای ناشناخته

Chapter four

Into an Unknown World

We travelled across the Atlantic to the city of Para in Brazil. Here we hired a black guide named Zambo, who fortunately spoke some English. We also hired Gomez and Manuel, who were half Indian. They both knew the Amazon very well. Then we travelled by boat up the Amazon to the town of Manaos.

Finally, it was 15 July at 12 o’clock, the day and hour when we could open the envelope.

We were all standing around a table. Lord John picked up the envelope and opened it. He pulled out a piece of paper. He put it on the table, but there was nothing written on it. He turned it over, but there was nothing there. Professor Summerlee laughed.

‘With this piece of paper Professor Challenger is telling us that this is all ridiculous, and that he’s a fraud,’ he cried. ‘Now, we can return home and tell everybody that he’s a terrible liar.’

Just then we heard someone say, ‘Can I come in?’

There, to our great surprise, was Professor Challenger!

‘I’m afraid I’m a few minutes late,’ he said. ‘Is everything ready for your journey?’

‘We can start tomorrow,’ I said,

‘Good. You don’t need a map now because I’m here.’

The next day we began our journey up the river in a boat called the Esmeralda. At the beginning the river was wide. It was like travelling on a lake. On the fourth day we turned into a tributary. Two days later we reached an Indian village. We got off the boat here, and, on 2 August, Professor Challenger sent the Esmeralda back to Manaos.

Some Indians built two canoes for us, and we took two more Indians with us. They were with Professor Challenger the first time. They seemed terrified to repeat the journey.

We got into our canoes and began to travel up the narrow river in the middle of the primeval forest. Fabulous tall trees stood over us. They were like the columns of a church. On the third day we heard a strange noise.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘Drums,’ said Lord John, ‘war drums. I have heard them before.’

‘Yes, sir, war drums,’ said Gomez. ‘Wild Indians. Bad ones not good ones. They watch us every mile of the way. They’ll kill us when they can.’

The drums seemed to say, ‘We’ll kill you if we can. We’ll kill you if we can.’

Our two professors were not afraid at all. They were too interested in the wonderful plants and animals around them, or they were too busy arguing about scientific theories.

That night we slept in the canoes in the middle of the river. We waited for an attack, but nothing happened.

The next day we arrived at some rapids about a mile long. These were the rapids where Professor Challenger lost most of his photos on his earlier journey. We carried the canoes around them. That night we were about ten miles above the rapids.

The next day we continued our journey until Professor Challenger said, ‘Look at that palm tree there. That’s the entrance to an unknown world.’

We pushed the canoes past the palm until we arrived at a shallow, transparent stream. It flowed through a low tunnel of green plants. The sound of the drums slowly disappeared, and the wild animals became less afraid of us.

On the third day we could no longer travel by canoe because the stream was not deep enough. We began our journey on foot. The characteristics of the land changed. We began walking higher up. The tropical forest disappeared, and there were only palm trees.

After we left the canoes we walked for 120 miles. Finally we came to an area where there were no more trees. Then we came to a bamboo forest. It took us all day to cross it.

The next day we climbed up a hill. Suddenly, Professor Challenger saw a gigantic bird fly up slowly from the ground.

‘Did you see? Did you see it, Summerlee?’ he shouted.

‘What do you think it was?’ Summerlee asked.

‘I believe it was a pterodactyl,’ he answered.

‘How absurd! It was just a big bird,’ said Professor Summerlee.

Professor Challenger was too angry to speak and we continued our journey.

Lord John then came up to me. He was holding his binoculars.

‘That was certainly not like any bird that I’ve ever seen,’ he said to me.

We crossed another hill and then we saw the high red cliffs of Maple White’s picture. They were about seven miles from our camp.