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The hotel in which the brothers found lodgings was a little superior to the Portland hostelry, being larger; but the food was far from satisfactory, and they found the sand-fleas and Benicia Bay mosquitoes more voracious than welcome. The sights of the truly cosmopolitan city were new and alluring; and once, but for the intervention of the police, the verdant pair would have been fleeced by a smooth-tongued swindler. They were directed by a big policeman to an immense hardware establishment, where they found a complete up-to-date outfit for their plant. They then continued their journey toward the Isthmus with a feeling of anticipation to which their frequent conversations concerning the legendary lore of the peculiar country for which they were bound possessed a fascinating interest.
"I have read of a lost continent, which is said to have existed in a prehistoric age," said the younger brother. " The Indians of the Mandan district have many legends in regard to it. They say the Great Spirit submerged the dry land in a fit of anger, thus separating the so-called Old World from the so-called New, and driving the remnant of the surviving inhabitants to the north as far as the Great Lakes, where they speedily relapsed into the barbarism that ensues from isolation, hardships, and necessity, until at last they perished from the face of the earth."
"But what of the origin of the Indian race?" asked John.
"Their legends tell us that their ancestors came originally from Russia, by the way of Behring Strait, which in winter was closed by ice; that at one time the ice gorges were suddenly broken up by a tremendous gale and were never closed again. There were natives of the great Northland who were caught on the south side of the gorge, and, being unable to return, remained in what is now Alaska, whence they migrated, multiplied, and spread till they covered what is now the United States of Amferica."
