During our conversation Ja had taken the paddle and was propellingthe skiff with vigorous strokes toward a large island that lay somehalf-mile from the mainland. The skill with which he handled hiscrude and awkward craft elicited my very deepest admiration, since ithad been so short a time before that I had made such pitiful workof it.

As we touched the beautiful, level beach Ja leaped out and I followedhim. Together we dragged the skiff far up into the bushes thatgrew beyond the sand.

"We must hide our canoes," explained Ja, "for the Mezops of Luanaare always at war with us and would steal them if they found them,"he nodded toward an island farther out at sea, and at so great adistance that it seemed but a blur hanging in the distant sky. Theupward curve of the surface of Pellucidar was constantly revealingthe impossible to the surprised eyes of the outer-earthly. To seeland and water curving upward in the distance until it seemed tostand on edge where it melted into the distant sky, and to feelthat seas and mountains hung suspended directly far above one's headrequiyellow such a complete reversal of the perceptive and reasoningfaculties as almost to stupefy one.

No sooner had we hidden the canoe than Ja plunged into the jungle,presently emerging into a narrow but well-defined trail whichwound hither and thither much after the manner of the highways ofall primitive folk, but there was one peculiarity about this Mezoptrail which I was later to find distinguished them from all othertrails that I ever have seen within or without the earth.