“A stream of which I do not know the name enters the San Maladrino just beyond the hills mentioned, and leads to the southward. It passes through the first forest and is broad and deep. Hiding in the forest the first day, I cautiously paddled my canoe up this stream the next night and passed a portion of the plain until I reached a smaller tributary entering from the left. This tributary flows through the most fertile and most thickly inhabited portion of the Indian lands. At the first junction I turned to the right and paddled along until I could go no further by boat. So, secreting my canoe in some bushes, I walked during the following night to the valley which we had before visited, and which lies in the uplands near to the edge of the great mountain forest. This tangled woodland favored me, for in it I hid securely by day, while at night I searched for diamonds in my valley.
“I found many stones, and some of extraordinary size and beauty, but was greatly retarded in my discoveries by the dimness of the light. The forest shaded the valley part of the time, and only for a brief two hours each night was the light of the moon directly upon the slight depression where I labored.
“And now I have been three weeks hidden in the heart of the San Blas district, and no one has observed me as yet. I have secured almost three quarts of superb diamonds—a fortune so enormous that I am considering a speedy return to civilization. Meantime, I have employed some of my leisure moments in writing this history in my book.”
CHAPTER VII
THE FOLLY OF THE WISE
No one had interrupted Duncan Moit as he read clearly and slowly the above interesting story, but as he paused at the close of the last paragraph I have recorded we gave some sighs of wonder and admiration and looked at one another curiously to see what impression the “history” was making.
“Go on!” cried Uncle Naboth, eagerly. “That can’t be all.”
“No,” answered the inventor, “it is not all. But it seems to cover the period of the first writing. The other entries are more hurried and more carelessly inscribed.”
“Is the map he mentions there?” I asked.
“Yes. It is badly drawn, for an engineer, but sufficiently clear, I imagine, to enable one to follow it with ease.”
“Then read on, please.”