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.