the Amazon near the mouth of the latter river. The upper
course of the Xingu is auriferous and fed by numerous
branches. Its source was first discovered in 1884 by the
German explorer von den Steinen, after a difficult and
dangerous expedition through a region inhabited by tribes
still in the Stone Age of culture.' "
The ladies received this communication in a state of stu-
pefied silence from which Mrs. Leveret was the first to
rally. "She certainly did speak of its having branches."
The word seemed to snap the last thread of their incre-
dulity. "And of its great length," gasped Mrs. Ballinger.
"She said it was awfully deep, and you couldn't skip—
you just had to wade through," Miss Glyde added.
The idea worked its way more slowly through Mrs. Plinth's
compact resistances. "How could there be anything
improper about a river?" she enquired.
"Improper?"
"Why, what she said about the source—that it was
corrupt?"
"Not corrupt, but hard to get at," Laura Glyde corrected.
"Some one who'd been there had told her so. I daresay
it was the explorer himself—doesn't it say the expedition
was dangerous?"
"'Difficult and dangerous,'" read Miss Van Vluyck.
Mrs. Ballinger pressed her hands to her throbbing temples.
"There's nothing she said that wouldn't apply to a river—
HYLAND
