CHAPTER 1.

A Not Unnatural Enterprise

This is written from memory, unfortunately. If I could have brought with

me the material I so carefully prepared, this would be a very different

story. Whole books full of notes, carefully copied records, firsthand

descriptions, and the pictures--that’s the worst loss. We had some

bird’s-eyes of the cities and parks; a lot of lovely views of streets,

of buildings, outside and in, and some of those gorgeous gardens, and,

most important of all, of the women themselves.

Nobody will ever believe how they looked. Descriptions aren’t any good

when it comes to women, and I never was good at descriptions anyhow. But

it’s got to be done somehow; the rest of the world needs to know about

that country.

I haven’t said where it was for fear some self-appointed missionaries,

or traders, or land-greedy expansionists, will take it upon themselves

to push in. They will not be wanted, I can tell them that, and will fare

worse than we did if they do find it.

It began this way. There were three of us, classmates and friends--Terry

O. Nicholson (we used to call him the Old Nick, with good reason), Jeff

Margrave, and I, Vandyck Jennings.

We had known each other years and years, and in spite of our differences

we had a good deal in common. All of us were interested in science.

Terry was rich enough to do as he pleased. His great aim was

exploration. He used to make all kinds of a row because there was

nothing left to explore now, only patchwork and filling in, he said. He

filled in well enough--he had a lot of talents--great on mechanics and

electricity. Had all kinds of boats and motorcars, and was one of the

best of our airmen.

We never could have done the thing at all without Terry.

Jeff Margrave was born to be a poet, a botanist--or both--but his folks

persuaded him to be a doctor instead. He was a good one, for his age,

but his real interest was in what he loved to call “the wonders of

science.”

As for me, sociology’s my major. You have to back that up with a lot of

other sciences, of course. I’m interested in them all.

Terry was strong on facts--geography and meteorology and those; Jeff

could beat him any time on biology, and I didn’t care what it was they

talked about, so long as it connected with human life, somehow. There

are few things that don’t.

We three had a chance to join a big scientific expedition. They needed

a doctor, and that gave Jeff an excuse for dropping his just opening

practice; they needed Terry’s experience, his machine, and his money;

and as for me, I got in through Terry’s influence.

The expedition was up among the thousand tributaries and enormous

hinterland of a great river, up where the maps had to be made, savage

dialects studied, and all manner of strange flora and fauna expected.

But this story is not about that expedition. That was only the merest

starter for ours.

My interest was first roused by talk among our guides. I’m quick at

languages, know a good many, and pick them up readily. What with that

and a really good interpreter we took with us, I made out quite a few

legends and folk myths of these scattered tribes.

And as we got farther and farther upstream, in a dark tangle of rivers,

lakes, morasses, and dense forests, with here and there an unexpected

long spur running out from the big mountains beyond, I noticed that more

and more of these savages had a story about a strange and terrible Woman

Land in the high distance.

“Up yonder,” “Over there,” “Way up”--was all the direction they could

offer, but their legends all agreed on the main point--that there was

this strange country where no men lived--only women and girl children.

None of them had ever seen it. It was dangerous, deadly, they said, for

any man to go there. But there were tales of long ago, when some brave

investigator had seen it--a Big Country, Big Houses, Plenty People--All

Women.

Had no one else gone? Yes--a good many--but they never came back. It was

no place for men--of that they seemed sure.

I told the boys about these stories, and they laughed at them. Naturally

I did myself. I knew the stuff that savage dreams are made of.

But when we had reached our farthest point, just the day before we all

had to turn around and start for home again, as the best of expeditions

must in time, we three made a discovery.

The main encampment was on a spit of land running out into the main

stream, or what we thought was the main stream. It had the same muddy

color we had been seeing for weeks past, the same taste.

I happened to speak of that river to our last guide, a rather superior

fellow with quick, bright eyes.

He told me that there was another river--“over there, short river, sweet

water, red and blue.”

I was interested in this and anxious to see if I had understood, so I

showed him a red and blue pencil I carried, and asked again.

Yes, he pointed to the river, and then to the southwestward.

“River--good water--red and blue.”

Terry was close by and interested in the fellow’s pointing.

“What does he say, Van?”

I told him.

Terry blazed up at once.

“Ask him how far it is.”

The man indicated a short journey; I judged about two hours, maybe

three.

“Let’s go,” urged Terry. “Just us three. Maybe we can really find

something. May be cinnabar in it.”

“May be indigo,” Jeff suggested, with his lazy smile.

It was early yet; we had just breakfasted; and leaving word that we’d

be back before night, we got away quietly, not wishing to be thought

too gullible if we failed, and secretly hoping to have some nice little

discovery all to ourselves.

It was a long two hours, nearer three. I fancy the savage could have

done it alone much quicker. There was a desperate tangle of wood and

water and a swampy patch we never should have found our way across

alone. But there was one, and I could see Terry, with compass and

notebook, marking directions and trying to place landmarks.

We came after a while to a sort of marshy lake, very big, so that the

circling forest looked quite low and dim across it. Our guide told us

that boats could go from there to our camp--but “long way--all day.”

This water was somewhat clearer than that we had left, but we could not

judge well from the margin. We skirted it for another half hour or so,

the ground growing firmer as we advanced, and presently we turned the

corner of a wooded promontory and saw a quite different country--a

sudden view of mountains, steep and bare.

“One of those long easterly spurs,” Terry said appraisingly. “May be

hundreds of miles from the range. They crop out like that.”

Suddenly we left the lake and struck directly toward the cliffs. We

heard running water before we reached it, and the guide pointed proudly

to his river.

It was short. We could see where it poured down a narrow vertical

cataract from an opening in the face of the cliff. It was sweet water.

The guide drank eagerly and so did we.

“That’s snow water,” Terry announced. “Must come from way back in the

hills.”

But as to being red and blue--it was greenish in tint. The guide seemed

not at all surprised. He hunted about a little and showed us a quiet

marginal pool where there were smears of red along the border; yes, and

of blue.

Terry got out his magnifying glass and squatted down to investigate.

“Chemicals of some sort--I can’t tell on the spot. Look to me like

dyestuffs. Let’s get nearer,” he urged, “up there by the fall.”

We scrambled along the steep banks and got close to the pool that foamed

and boiled beneath the falling water. Here we searched the border and

found traces of color beyond dispute. More--Jeff suddenly held up an

unlooked-for trophy.

It was only a rag, a long, raveled fragment of cloth. But it was a

well-woven fabric, with a pattern, and of a clear scarlet that the water

had not faded. No savage tribe that we had heard of made such fabrics.

The guide stood serenely on the bank, well pleased with our excitement.

“One day blue--one day red--one day green,” he told us, and pulled from

his pouch another strip of bright-hued cloth.

“Come down,” he said, pointing to the cataract. “Woman Country--up

there.”

Then we were interested. We had our rest and lunch right there and

pumped the man for further information. He could tell us only what the

others had--a land of women--no men--babies, but all girls. No place for

men--dangerous. Some had gone to see--none had come back.

I could see Terry’s jaw set at that. No place for men? Dangerous? He

looked as if he might shin up the waterfall on the spot. But the guide

would not hear of going up, even if there had been any possible method

of scaling that sheer cliff, and we had to get back to our party before

night.

“They might stay if we told them,” I suggested.

But Terry stopped in his tracks. “Look here, fellows,” he said. “This

is our find. Let’s not tell those cocky old professors. Let’s go on home

with ’em, and then come back--just us--have a little expedition of our

own.”

We looked at him, much impressed. There was something attractive to a

bunch of unattached young men in finding an undiscovered country of a

strictly Amazonian nature.

Of course we didn’t believe the story--but yet!

“There is no such cloth made by any of these local tribes,” I announced,

examining those rags with great care. “Somewhere up yonder they spin and

weave and dye--as well as we do.”

“That would mean a considerable civilization, Van. There couldn’t be

such a place--and not known about.”

“Oh, well, I don’t know. What’s that old republic up in the Pyrenees

somewhere--Andorra? Precious few people know anything about that, and

it’s been minding its own business for a thousand years. Then there’s

Montenegro--splendid little state--you could lose a dozen Montenegroes

up and down these great ranges.”

We discussed it hotly all the way back to camp. We discussed it with

care and privacy on the voyage home. We discussed it after that, still

only among ourselves, while Terry was making his arrangements.

He was hot about it. Lucky he had so much money--we might have had to

beg and advertise for years to start the thing, and then it would have

been a matter of public amusement--just sport for the papers.

But T. O. Nicholson could fix up his big steam yacht, load his

specially-made big motorboat aboard, and tuck in a “dissembled” biplane

without any more notice than a snip in the society column.

We had provisions and preventives and all manner of supplies. His

previous experience stood him in good stead there. It was a very

complete little outfit.

We were to leave the yacht at the nearest safe port and go up that

endless river in our motorboat, just the three of us and a pilot; then

drop the pilot when we got to that last stopping place of the previous

party, and hunt up that clear water stream ourselves.

The motorboat we were going to leave at anchor in that wide shallow

lake. It had a special covering of fitted armor, thin but strong, shut

up like a clamshell.

“Those natives can’t get into it, or hurt it, or move it,” Terry

explained proudly. “We’ll start our flier from the lake and leave the

boat as a base to come back to.”

“If we come back,” I suggested cheerfully.

“‘Fraid the ladies will eat you?” he scoffed.

“We’re not so sure about those ladies, you know,” drawled Jeff. “There

may be a contingent of gentlemen with poisoned arrows or something.”

“You don’t need to go if you don’t want to,” Terry remarked drily.

“Go? You’ll have to get an injunction to stop me!” Both Jeff and I were

sure about that.

But we did have differences of opinion, all the long way.

An ocean voyage is an excellent time for discussion. Now we had no

eavesdroppers, we could loll and loaf in our deck chairs and talk and

talk--there was nothing else to do. Our absolute lack of facts only made

the field of discussion wider.

“We’ll leave papers with our consul where the yacht stays,” Terry

planned. “If we don’t come back in--say a month--they can send a relief

party after us.”

“A punitive expedition,” I urged. “If the ladies do eat us we must make

reprisals.”

“They can locate that last stopping place easy enough, and I’ve made a

sort of chart of that lake and cliff and waterfall.”

“Yes, but how will they get up?” asked Jeff.

“Same way we do, of course. If three valuable American citizens are lost

up there, they will follow somehow--to say nothing of the glittering

attractions of that fair land--let’s call it ‘Feminisia,’” he broke off.

“You’re right, Terry. Once the story gets out, the river will crawl with

expeditions and the airships rise like a swarm of mosquitoes.” I laughed

as I thought of it. “We’ve made a great mistake not to let Mr. Yellow

Press in on this. Save us! What headlines!”

“Not much!” said Terry grimly. “This is our party. We’re going to find

that place alone.”

“What are you going to do with it when you do find it--if you do?” Jeff

asked mildly.

Jeff was a tender soul. I think he thought that country--if there was

one--was just blossoming with roses and babies and canaries and tidies,

and all that sort of thing.

And Terry, in his secret heart, had visions of a sort of sublimated

summer resort--just Girls and Girls and Girls--and that he was going to

be--well, Terry was popular among women even when there were other men

around, and it’s not to be wondered at that he had pleasant dreams of

what might happen. I could see it in his eyes as he lay there, looking

at the long blue rollers slipping by, and fingering that impressive

mustache of his.

But I thought--then--that I could form a far clearer idea of what was

before us than either of them.

“You’re all off, boys,” I insisted. “If there is such a place--and there

does seem some foundation for believing it--you’ll find it’s built on a

sort of matriarchal principle, that’s all. The men have a separate cult

of their own, less socially developed than the women, and make them an

annual visit--a sort of wedding call. This is a condition known to have

existed--here’s just a survival. They’ve got some peculiarly isolated

valley or tableland up there, and their primeval customs have survived.

That’s all there is to it.”

“How about the boys?” Jeff asked.

“Oh, the men take them away as soon as they are five or six, you see.”

“And how about this danger theory all our guides were so sure of?”

“Danger enough, Terry, and we’ll have to be mighty careful. Women of

that stage of culture are quite able to defend themselves and have no

welcome for unseasonable visitors.”

We talked and talked.

And with all my airs of sociological superiority I was no nearer than

any of them.

It was funny though, in the light of what we did find, those extremely

clear ideas of ours as to what a country of women would be like. It

was no use to tell ourselves and one another that all this was idle

speculation. We were idle and we did speculate, on the ocean voyage and

the river voyage, too.

“Admitting the improbability,” we’d begin solemnly, and then launch out

again.

“They would fight among themselves,” Terry insisted. “Women always do.

We mustn’t look to find any sort of order and organization.”

“You’re dead wrong,” Jeff told him. “It will be like a nunnery under an

abbess--a peaceful, harmonious sisterhood.”

I snorted derision at this idea.

“Nuns, indeed! Your peaceful sisterhoods were all celibate, Jeff, and

under vows of obedience. These are just women, and mothers, and where

there’s motherhood you don’t find sisterhood--not much.”

“No, sir--they’ll scrap,” agreed Terry. “Also we mustn’t look for

inventions and progress; it’ll be awfully primitive.”

“How about that cloth mill?” Jeff suggested.

“Oh, cloth! Women have always been spinsters. But there they

stop--you’ll see.”

We joked Terry about his modest impression that he would be warmly

received, but he held his ground.

“You’ll see,” he insisted. “I’ll get solid with them all--and play one

bunch against another. I’ll get myself elected king in no time--whew!

Solomon will have to take a back seat!”

“Where do we come in on that deal?” I demanded. “Aren’t we Viziers or

anything?”

“Couldn’t risk it,” he asserted solemnly. “You might start a

revolution--probably would. No, you’ll have to be beheaded, or

bowstrung--or whatever the popular method of execution is.”

“You’d have to do it yourself, remember,” grinned Jeff. “No husky black

slaves and mamelukes! And there’d be two of us and only one of you--eh,

Van?”

Jeff’s ideas and Terry’s were so far apart that sometimes it was all

I could do to keep the peace between them. Jeff idealized women in the

best Southern style. He was full of chivalry and sentiment, and all

that. And he was a good boy; he lived up to his ideals.

You might say Terry did, too, if you can call his views about women

anything so polite as ideals. I always liked Terry. He was a man’s man,

very much so, generous and brave and clever; but I don’t think any of

us in college days was quite pleased to have him with our sisters. We

weren’t very stringent, heavens no! But Terry was “the limit.” Later

on--why, of course a man’s life is his own, we held, and asked no

questions.

But barring a possible exception in favor of a not impossible wife, or

of his mother, or, of course, the fair relatives of his friends, Terry’s

idea seemed to be that pretty women were just so much game and homely

ones not worth considering.

It was really unpleasant sometimes to see the notions he had.

But I got out of patience with Jeff, too. He had such rose-colored halos

on his womenfolks. I held a middle ground, highly scientific, of course,

and used to argue learnedly about the physiological limitations of the

sex.

We were not in the least “advanced” on the woman question, any of us,

then.

So we joked and disputed and speculated, and after an interminable

journey, we got to our old camping place at last.

It was not hard to find the river, just poking along that side till we

came to it, and it was navigable as far as the lake.

When we reached that and slid out on its broad glistening bosom, with

that high gray promontory running out toward us, and the straight white

fall clearly visible, it began to be really exciting.

There was some talk, even then, of skirting the rock wall and seeking

a possible footway up, but the marshy jungle made that method look not

only difficult but dangerous.

Terry dismissed the plan sharply.

“Nonsense, fellows! We’ve decided that. It might take months--we haven’t

got the provisions. No, sir--we’ve got to take our chances. If we get

back safe--all right. If we don’t, why, we’re not the first explorers to

get lost in the shuffle. There are plenty to come after us.”

So we got the big biplane together and loaded it with our scientifically

compressed baggage: the camera, of course; the glasses; a supply of

concentrated food. Our pockets were magazines of small necessities, and

we had our guns, of course--there was no knowing what might happen.

Up and up and up we sailed, way up at first, to get “the lay of the

land” and make note of it.

Out of that dark green sea of crowding forest this high-standing spur

rose steeply. It ran back on either side, apparently, to the far-off

white-crowned peaks in the distance, themselves probably inaccessible.

“Let’s make the first trip geographical,” I suggested. “Spy out the

land, and drop back here for more gasoline. With your tremendous speed

we can reach that range and back all right. Then we can leave a sort of

map on board--for that relief expedition.”

“There’s sense in that,” Terry agreed. “I’ll put off being king of

Ladyland for one more day.”

So we made a long skirting voyage, turned the point of the cape which

was close by, ran up one side of the triangle at our best speed, crossed

over the base where it left the higher mountains, and so back to our

lake by moonlight.

“That’s not a bad little kingdom,” we agreed when it was roughly drawn

and measured. We could tell the size fairly by our speed. And from what

we could see of the sides--and that icy ridge at the back end--“It’s a

pretty enterprising savage who would manage to get into it,” Jeff said.

Of course we had looked at the land itself--eagerly, but we were too

high and going too fast to see much. It appeared to be well forested

about the edges, but in the interior there were wide plains, and

everywhere parklike meadows and open places.

There were cities, too; that I insisted. It looked--well, it looked like

any other country--a civilized one, I mean.

We had to sleep after that long sweep through the air, but we turned out

early enough next day, and again we rose softly up the height till

we could top the crowning trees and see the broad fair land at our

pleasure.

“Semitropical. Looks like a first-rate climate. It’s wonderful what a

little height will do for temperature.” Terry was studying the forest

growth.

“Little height! Is that what you call little?” I asked. Our instruments

measured it clearly. We had not realized the long gentle rise from the

coast perhaps.

“Mighty lucky piece of land, I call it,” Terry pursued. “Now for the

folks--I’ve had enough scenery.”

So we sailed low, crossing back and forth, quartering the country as we

went, and studying it. We saw--I can’t remember now how much of this we

noted then and how much was supplemented by our later knowledge, but we

could not help seeing this much, even on that excited day--a land in a

state of perfect cultivation, where even the forests looked as if they

were cared for; a land that looked like an enormous park, only it was

even more evidently an enormous garden.

“I don’t see any cattle,” I suggested, but Terry was silent. We were

approaching a village.

I confess that we paid small attention to the clean, well-built roads,

to the attractive architecture, to the ordered beauty of the little

town. We had our glasses out; even Terry, setting his machine for a

spiral glide, clapped the binoculars to his eyes.

They heard our whirring screw. They ran out of the houses--they gathered

in from the fields, swift-running light figures, crowds of them. We

stared and stared until it was almost too late to catch the levers,

sweep off and rise again; and then we held our peace for a long run

upward.

“Gosh!” said Terry, after a while.

“Only women there--and children,” Jeff urged excitedly.

“But they look--why, this is a _civilized_ country!” I protested. “There

must be men.”

“Of course there are men,” said Terry. “Come on, let’s find ’em.”

He refused to listen to Jeff’s suggestion that we examine the country

further before we risked leaving our machine.

“There’s a fine landing place right there where we came over,” he

insisted, and it was an excellent one--a wide, flat-topped rock,

overlooking the lake, and quite out of sight from the interior.

“They won’t find this in a hurry,” he asserted, as we scrambled with the

utmost difficulty down to safer footing. “Come on, boys--there were some

good lookers in that bunch.”

Of course it was unwise of us.

It was quite easy to see afterward that our best plan was to have

studied the country more fully before we left our swooping airship and

trusted ourselves to mere foot service. But we were three young men. We

had been talking about this country for over a year, hardly believing

that there was such a place, and now--we were in it.

It looked safe and civilized enough, and among those upturned, crowding

faces, though some were terrified enough, there was great beauty--on

that we all agreed.

“Come on!” cried Terry, pushing forward. “Oh, come on! Here goes for

Herland!”