Here we soon came to a valley so beautiful as almost to
defy description. Colossal trees rose to a great height above our
heads, festooned with a flowering creeper which resembled a bridal
veil, whilst emerald green ferns stretched their fronds into a stream
which descended from the higher land beyond by a series of cascades. A
kind of flax plant grew here, with leaves over nine feet long, and
bearing a flower which looked like a bunch of feather plumes, whilst
palms and cabbage trees abounded everywhere in great profusion.
My attention was diverted from the beauties which surrounded us by some
strange footprints which I noticed on the soft ground near the stream,
and which appeared to have been made by a bird or two-legged animal of
prodigious size. The footprints measured fully three feet in length,
and I fell to wondering what kind of a creature it could be who had
made them, when I was startled by a cry from one of our men, which
caused me to look in the direction whence it came. At a distance of
some fifty yards from where I stood I then perceived a huge, wingless
bird. Its head, armed with a formidable beak, reared full twenty feet
from the ground; its body, big as an ox, and covered with black
bristles, supported upon legs thicker than the girth of a man.
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