The People of the Mist

I DEDICATE THIS EFFORT OF "PRIMEVAL AND TROGLODYTE IMAGINATION" THIS RECORD OF BAREFACED AND FLAGRANT ADVENTURE
TO MY GODSONS
IN THE HOPE THAT THEREIN THEY MAY FIND SOME STORE OF HEALTHY AMUSEMENT.
Ditchingham, 1894.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
On several previous occasions it has happened to this writer of romance to be justified of his romances by facts of startling similarity, subsequently brought to light and to his knowledge. In this tale occurs an instance of the sort, a "double-barrelled" instance indeed, that to him seems sufficiently curious to be worthy of telling. The People of the Mist of his adventure story worship a sacred crocodile to which they make sacrifice, but in the original draft of the book this crocodile was a snake - /monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens/. A friend of the writer, an African explorer of great experience who read that draft, suggested that the snake was altogether too unprecedented and impossible. Accordingly, also at...