_THE DEVIL-TREE OF EL DORADO_ [Illustration: "IT WAS PASSED ABOUT; NOW LIFTED HIGH IN THE AIR BY ONE END, THEN BY THE OTHER." _Frontispiece._] [_Page 249._] _THE DEVIL-TREE OF EL DORADO_ A novel BY FRANK AUBREY _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY LEIGH ELLIS AND FRED. HYLAND._ [Illustration] NEW YORK NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY 156 FIFTH AVENUE LONDON: HUTCHINSON & COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY. PREFACE. SHALL RORAIMA[1] BE GIVEN UP TO VENEZUELA? [1] The Indians of British Guiana pronounce this word Roreema. Shall Roraima be handed over to Venezuela? Shall the mysterious mountain long known to scientists as foremost among the wonders of our earth--regarded by many as the greatest marvel of the world--become definitely Venezuelan territory? This is the question that hangs in the balance at the time these words are being written, that is inseparably associated--though many of the public know it not--with the dispute that has arisen about the boundaries of British Guiana. Ever since Sir Robert Schomburgk first explored the colony at the expense of the Royal Geographical Society some sixty years ago, Roraima has remained an unsolved problem of romantic and fascinating interest, as attractive to the 'ordinary person' as to the man of science. And to those acquainted with the wondrous possibilities that lie behind the solution of the problem, the prospect of its being handed over to a country so little worthy of the trust as is Venezuela, cannot be contemplated without feelings of disappointment and dismay. This is not the place in which to give a long description of Roraima. It will suffice here to say that its summit is a table-land which, it is believed, has been isolated from all the rest of the world for untold ages; no wilderness of ice and snow, but a fertile country of wood and stream, and, probably, lake. Consequently it holds out to the successful explorer the chance--the probability even--of finding there hitherto unknown animals, plants, fish. In this respect it exceeds in interest all other parts of the earth's surface, not excepting the polar regions; for the latter are but ice-bound wastes, while Roraima's mysterious table-land lies in the tropics but a few degrees north of the equator.