"We knew this head was here, your father saw it.Very likely it is not the same head that the writing talks of; or if it is, it proves nothing."Leo smiled at me in a superior way."You are an unbelieving Jew, Uncle Horace," he said."Those who live will see.""Exactly so," I answered, "and now perhaps you will observe that we are drifting across a sand bank into the mouth of the river.Get hold of your oar, Job, and we will row in and see if we can find a place to land."The river-mouth which we were entering did not appear to be a very wide one, though as yet the long banks of steaming mist that clung about its shores had not lifted sufficiently to enable us to see its exact width.There was, as is the case with nearly every East African river, a considerable bar at the mouth, which, no doubt, when the wind was on shore and the tide running out, was absolutely impassable even for a beat drawing only a few inches.But as things were it was manageable enough, and we did not ship a cupful of water.In twenty minutes we were well across it, with but slight assistance from ourselves, and being carried by a strong though somewhat variable breeze well up the harbor.By this time the mist was being sucked up by the sun, which was getting uncomfortably hot, and we saw that the mouth of the little estuary was here about half a mile across, and that the banks were very marshy, and crowded with crocodiles lying about on the mud like logs.About a mile ahead of us, however, was what appeared to be a strip of firm land, and for this we steered.In another quarter of an hour we were there, and, ****** the boat fast to a beautiful tree with broad, shining leaves, and flowers of the magnolia species, only they were rose-colored and not white, which hung over the water, we disembarked.This done, we undressed, washed ourselves, and spread our clothes and the contents of the boat in the sun to dry, which they very quickly did.Then, taking shelter from the sun under some trees, we made a hearty breakfast off a "Paysandu"potted tongue, of which we had brought a good quantity with us from the Army and Navy Stores, congratulating ourselves loudly on our good fortune in having loaded and provisioned the boat on the previous day, before the hurricane destroyed the dhow.By the time that we had finished our meal our clothes were quite dry, and we hastened to get into them, feeling not a little refreshed.Indeed, with the exception of weariness and a few bruises, none of us were the worse for the terrifying adventure which had been fatal to all our companions.Leo, it is true, had been half drowned, but that is no great matter to a vigorous young athlete of five-and-twenty.
After breakfast we started to look about us.We were on a strip of dry land about two hundred yards broad by five hundred long, bordered on one side by the river, and on the other three by endless desolate swamps, that stretched as far as the eye could reach.
This strip of land was raised about twenty-five feet above the plain of the surrounding swamps and the river level; indeed, it had every appearance of having been made by the hand of man.
"This place has been a wharf," said Leo, dogmatically.
"Nonsense," I answered."Who would be stupid enough to build a wharf in the middle of these dreadful marshes in a country inhabited by savages, that is if it is inhabited at all?""Perhaps it was not always marsh, and perhaps the people were not always savage," he said, dryly, looking down the steep bank for we were standing by the river."Look there," he went on, pointing to a spot where the hurricane of the previous night had torn up one of the magnolia-trees, which had grown on the extreme edge of the bank just where it sloped down to the water, by the roots, and lifted a large cake of earth with them."Is not that stonework? If not, it is very like it.""Nonsense," I said, again, and we clambered down to the spot, and got between the upturned roots and the bank.
"Well?" he said.
But I did not answer this time.I only whistled.For there, laid bare by the removal of the earth, was an undoubted facing of solid stone laid in large blocks and bound together with brown cement, so hard that Icould make no impression on it with the file in my shooting-knife.Nor was this all; seeing something projecting through the soil at the bottom of the bared patch of walling, I removed the loose earth with my hands, and revealed a huge stone ring, a foot or more in diameter, and about three inches thick.This fairly staggered me.
"Looks rather like a wharf where good-sized vessels have been moored, does it not, Uncle Horace?" said Leo, with an excited grin.
I tried to say "Nonsense" again, but the word stuck in my throatthe ring spoke for itself.In some past age vessels _i_ had _i_ been moored there, and this stone wall was undoubtedly the remnant of a solidly constructed wharf.Probably the city to which it had belonged lay buried beneath the swamp behind it.
"Begins to look as though there were something in the story after all, Uncle Horace," said the exultant Leo;and, reflecting on the mysterious negro's head and the equally mysterious stonework, I made no direct reply.
"A country like Africa," I said, "is sure to be full of the relics of long dead and forgotten civilizations.Nobody knows the age of the Egyptian civilization, and very likely it had offshoots.Then there were the Babylonians and the Phoenicians, and the Persians, and all manner of people, all more or less civilized, to say nothing of the Jews, whom everybody 'wants' nowadays.It is possible that they, or any one of them, may have had colonies or trading-stations about here.Remember those buried Persian cities that the consul showed us at Kilwa.""Quite so," said Leo, "but that is not what you said before.""Well, what is to be done now?" I asked, turning the conversation.
