In Search of an Unknown Race — page 88: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

78 VAN. And now neither rapids or waterfalls were encoun- tered. Again the river widened, and the sluggish cur- rent was easily stemmed. Feeling better, stronger, and even light-hearted, Van sent his little craft skim- ming around with a strange thrill of exultation at the thought that he, a New England boy, was probably the first white man who had ever penetrated so far into these mysterious wilds. _ Nearer and with increasing grandeur loomed up the mighty mountain ranges, which, with the exception of the Andes, are perhaps the highest on the continent. Their crests and summits, covered with perpetual snows, were hidden among the clouds. Lower down began lines of green, deepening into stronger tints of olive, with here and there vast slopes and granite peaks rising in a thousand irregular and fantastic shapes. Along the river banks from time to time Van caught glimpses of massive ruins, which were perhaps the remains of cities built by the people of whom the most ancient history has no record; a race who ruled and reigned several thousands of years—so antiquarians assert—before the era of the Incas or the time of the Aztecs. Still on through the long day, which was followed by a night of refreshing slumber on the soft grass, a little back from the river’s edge, undisturbed by fears of the dampness and miasmatic vapors of the lower lands. Another day and another night, and then as the green river banks began to crimson ‘in the rays of a morning sun, which turned the drops of dew on fern and flower into precious gems, Van saw before him the ionged-for Lake Canuma, | GoOmMmichbooks (E(o)