4 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



the trolleys, electric lights, museums, and newspapers of 

 Port of Spain, the wireless station even now flashing its 

 aerial messages from yonder peak, all boded ill for our 

 search for primeval conditions. Was there no spot left on 

 earth, we wondered, which could truthfully be called an 

 untrodden wilderness! jungles untouched by axe or fire, 

 where guns had not replaced bows and arrows; where the 

 creatures of the wilderness were tame through unfamiliarity 

 with human beings! 



The Southern Cross rose and straightened its arms; the 

 Pole Star hung low in the north. As the night wore on, an 

 ugly sea arose and half buried our little craft in foam and 

 spray. A cross-wind disputed our advance and the strong 

 tide drove us out of our course. But our captain had navi- 

 gated these waters for more than half a century, and we had 

 no fears. 



The following day was as wild as the night, and no living 

 thing appeared in sky or sea, save a host of milky jelly-fish 

 (Stomolophus meleagris). They kept below the surface, and 

 seemed to suffer no damage from the roughness of the water. 

 In an area of a square yard we counted twenty, and for hour 

 after hour we passed through vast masses of them, extending 

 to the farthest waves visible on either hand and as deep 

 down as our eyes could penetrate myriads upon myriads 

 of these lowly beings, each vibrating with life, and yet un- 

 able to guide its course against the tide, or to do aught but 

 pulsate slowly along. 



Later in the day, although the water grew less rough, the 

 whole company sank lower in the muddy depths muddy, 

 because the brown waters of the great Orinoco hold sway 

 over all this gulf and scatter out at sea the sediment washed 

 from the banks far inland. 



Finally the storm passed and we saw a blue cloud to the 



