"Hyne,.C.J.Cutcliffe.-.Lost.Continent.-.Lostc10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hyne C J Cutcliffe)

the dew-fall and the comparative chill of darkness are not to be
trifled with. For myself on these occasions I like a bit of a run
as an early refresher. But here on this rough ground in the middle
of the island there were not three yards of level to be found, and
so as Coppinger proceeded to go through some sort of dumb-bell
exercises with a couple of lumps of bristly lava, I followed his
example. Coppinger has done a good deal of roughing it in his
time, but being a doctor of medicine amongst other things--he takes
out a new degree of some sort on an average every other year--he is
great on health theories, and practises them like a religion.

There had been rain two days before, and as there was still a
bit of stream trickling along at the bottom of the barranca, we
went down there and had a wash, and brushed our teeth. Greatest
luxury imaginable, a toothbrush, on this sort of expedition.

"Now," said Coppinger when we had emptied our pockets,
"there's precious little grub left, and it's none the better for
being carried in a local Spanish newspaper."

"Yours is mostly tobacco ashes."

"It'll get worse if we leave it. We've a lot more bad
scrambling ahead of us."

That was obvious. So we sat down beside the stream there at
the bottom of the barranca, and ate up all of what was left. It
was a ten-mile tramp to the fonda at Santa Brigida, where we had
set down our traps; and as Coppinger wanted to take a lot more
photographs and measurements before we left this particular group
of caves, it was likely we should be pretty sharp set before we got
our next meal, and our next taste of the PATRON'S splendid
old country wine. My faith! If only they knew down in the English
hotels in Las Palmas what magnificent wines one could get--with
diplomacy--up in some of the mountain villages, the old vintage
would become a thing of the past in a week.

Now to tell the truth, the two mummies he had gathered already
quite satisfied my small ambition. The goatskins in which they
were sewn up were as brittle as paper, and the poor old things
themselves gave out dust like a puffball whenever they were
touched. But you know what Coppinger is. He thought he'd come
upon traces of an old Guanche university, or sacred college, or
something of that kind, like the one there is on the other side of
the island, and he wouldn't be satisfied till he'd ransacked every
cave in the whole face of the cliff. He'd plenty of stuff left for
the flashlight thing, and twenty-eight more films in his kodak, and
said we might as well get through with the job then as make a
return journey all on purpose. So he took the crowbar, and I
shouldered the rope, and away we went up to the ridge of the cliff,