"Ah yes! It is so now--or will be henceforth, when those who have had such sorrows here shall have outlived them," said Monella with impressive emphasis. "But what I would put to you, is this; you have, perhaps, seen something of frontier settlements, or miners' camps, and gold diggings--at least, _I_ have--and you have heard of them. Now, you know well enough that the only people who would care to brave the hardships of the journey hither would be those led on by the lust and greed of gold. Supposing things were reversed, and you were in Leonard's place, and had here your wife--as he will have--your friends, your own people--all that was dearest in the world, with ample wealth, would you care to allow him, or any one else, to lead people hither, to turn this 'El Dorado' into a 'Gold diggings,' a 'Miners' camp,' with all their hideous associations, their gambling and drunkenness; their rowdyism and their debauchery, their shootings and murders?" "No!" said Templemore thoughtfully, "you are right there. Still--surely, between that, and forbidding intercourse altogether--forbidding me even to come to visit my friend----" Monella smiled and gravely shook his head. "You think that, between the two extremes, there should be some middle course possible," he rejoined. "Unfortunately--or fortunately--there is none. _You_ will have no need to come here seeking for wealth. You would not be likely to undertake the expedition alone. Those who accompanied you would do so from self-seeking motives. Then, again, you will have other ties; you will have your wife, children. You do not contemplate dragging them hither through trackless wastes to greet friends _they_ have never known as you have? They would not like it, again, if you, a man of wealth, able to do as you pleased, were to leave them for a long space while you made the journey hither alone! And, finally, the thing is not practical or feasible for another reason. You will have much ado to find your way out from here. You know that in these regions vegetation spreads rapidly unless--as in the canyon we came up, or in the clearing immediately outside around the cavern by which we entered, or out on the savanna--there are special causes that check its spread. Should you come back in a year's time, you would not only find the road we cut out impassable--you could not even trace it. The spread of the undergrowth, the fall of great trees or branches, the hurling down of rocks from the heights above, floods from the streams and watercourses--all these, and other forces of nature in this wild region, will, within a few months, have combined to block up or obliterate completely the path we cut with so much difficulty. Is it not so?" "I fear you are right, though it had not occurred to me," Templemore admitted with reluctance.