



Produced by Judith Boss.  HTML version by Al Haines.











  The Lost Continent was originally published
    under the title Beyond Thirty




THE LOST CONTINENT


by

Edgar Rice Burroughs


JTABLE 3 9 1



1


Since earliest childhood I have been strangely fascinated by the
mystery surrounding the history of the last days of twentieth century
Europe.  My interest is keenest, perhaps, not so much in relation to
known facts as to speculation upon the unknowable of the two centuries
that have rolled by since human intercourse between the Western and
Eastern Hemispheres ceased--the mystery of Europe's state following the
termination of the Great War--provided, of course, that the war had
been terminated.

From out of the meagerness of our censored histories we learned that
for fifteen years after the cessation of diplomatic relations between
the United States of North America and the belligerent nations of the
Old World, news of more or less doubtful authenticity filtered, from
time to time, into the Western Hemisphere from the Eastern.

Then came the fruition of that historic propaganda which is best
described by its own slogan: "The East for the East--the West for the
West," and all further intercourse was stopped by statute.

Even prior to this, transoceanic commerce had practically ceased, owing
to the perils and hazards of the mine-strewn waters of both the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  Just when submarine activities ended we
do not know but the last vessel of this type sighted by a Pan-American
merchantman was the huge Q 138, which discharged twenty-nine torpedoes
at a Brazilian tank steamer off the Bermudas in the fall of 1972.  A
heavy sea and the excellent seamanship of the master of the Brazilian
permitted the Pan-American to escape and report this last of a long
series of outrages upon our commerce.  God alone knows how many
hundreds of our ancient ships fell prey to the roving steel sharks of
blood-frenzied Europe.  Countless were the vessels and men that passed
over our eastern and western horizons never to return; but whether they
met their fates before the belching tubes of submarines or among the
aimlessly drifting mine fields, no man lived to tell.

And then came the great Pan-American Federation which linked the
Western Hemisphere from pole to pole under a single flag, which joined
the navies of the New World into the mightiest fighting force that ever
sailed the seven seas--the greatest argument for peace the world had
ever known.

Since that day peace had reigned from the western shores of the Azores
to the western shores of the Hawaiian Islands, nor has any man of
either hemisphere dared cross 30dW. or 175dW.  From 30d to 175d is
ours--from 30d to 175d is peace, prosperity and happiness.

Beyond was the great unknown.  Even the geographies of my boyhood
showed nothing beyond.  We were taught of nothing beyond.  Speculation
was discouraged.  For two hundred years the Eastern Hemisphere had been
wiped from the maps and histories of Pan-America.  Its mention in
fiction, even, was forbidden.

Our ships of peace patrol thirty and one hundred seventy-five.  What
ships from beyond they have warned only the secret archives of
government show; but, a naval officer myself, I have gathered from the
traditions of the service that it has been fully two hundred years
since smoke or sail has been sighted east of 30d or west of 175d.  The
fate of the relinquished provinces which lay beyond the dead lines we
could only speculate upon.  That they were taken by the military power,
which rose so suddenly in China after the fall of the republic, and
which wrested Manchuria and Korea from Russia and Japan, and also
absorbed the Philippines, is quite within the range of possibility.

It was the commander of a Chinese man-of-war who received a copy of the
edict of 1972 from the hand of my illustrious ancestor, Admiral Turck,
on one hundred seventy-five, two hundred and six years ago, and from
the yellowed pages of the admiral's diary I learned that the fate of
the Philippines was even then presaged by these Chinese naval officers.

Yes, for over two hundred years no man crossed 30d to 175d and lived to
tell his story--not until chance drew me across and back again, and
public opinion, revolting at last against the drastic regulations of
our long-dead forbears, demanded that my story be given to the world,
and that the narrow interdict which commanded peace, prosperity, and
happiness to halt at 30d and 175d be removed forever.

I am glad that it was given to me to be an instrument in the hands of
Providence for the uplifting of benighted Europe, and the amelioration
of the suffering, degradation, and abysmal ignorance in which I found
her.

I shall not live to see the complete regeneration of the savage hordes
of the Eastern Hemisphere--that is a work which will require many
generations, perhaps ages, so complete has been their reversion to
savagery; but I know that the work has been started, and I am proud of
the share in it which my generous countrymen have placed in my hands.

The government already possesses a complete official report of my
adventures beyond thirty.  In the narrative I purpose telling my story
in a less formal, and I hope, a more entertaining, style; though, being
only a naval officer and without claim to the slightest literary
ability, I shall most certainly fall far short of the possibilities
which are inherent in my subject.  That I have passed through the most
wondrous adventures that have befallen a civilized man during the past
two centuries encourages me in the belief that, however ill the
telling, the facts themselves will command your interest to the final
page.

Beyond thirty!  Romance, adventure, strange peoples, fearsome
beasts--all the excitement and scurry of the lives of the twentieth
century ancients that have been denied us in these dull days of peace
and prosaic prosperity--all, all lay beyond thirty, the invisible
barrier between the stupid, commercial present and the carefree,
barbarous past.

What boy has not sighed for the good old days of wars, revolutions, and
riots; how I used to pore over the chronicles of those old days, those
dear old days, when workmen went armed to their labors; when they fell
upon one another with gun and bomb and dagger, and the streets ran red
with blood!  Ah, but those were the times when life was worth the
living; when a man who went out by night knew not at which dark corner
a "footpad" might leap upon and slay him; when wild beasts roamed the
forest and the jungles, and there were savage men, and countries yet
unexplored.

Now, in all the Western Hemisphere dwells no man who may not find a
school house within walking distance of his home, or at least within
flying distance.

The wildest beast that roams our waste places lairs in the frozen north
or the frozen south within a government reserve, where the curious may
view him and feed him bread crusts from the hand with perfect impunity.

But beyond thirty!  And I have gone there, and come back; and now you
may go there, for no longer is it high treason, punishable by disgrace
or death, to cross 30d or 175d.

My name is Jefferson Turck.  I am a lieutenant in the navy--in the
great Pan-American navy, the only navy which now exists in all the
world.

I was born in Arizona, in the United States of North America, in the
year of our Lord 2116.  Therefore, I am twenty-one years old.

In early boyhood I tired of the teeming cities and overcrowded rural
districts of Arizona.  Every generation of Turcks for over two
centuries has been represented in the navy.  The navy called to me, as
did the free, wide, unpeopled spaces of the mighty oceans.  And so I
joined the navy, coming up from the ranks, as we all must, learning our
craft as we advance.  My promotion was rapid, for my family seems to
inherit naval lore.  We are born officers, and I reserve to myself no
special credit for an early advancement in the service.

At twenty I found myself a lieutenant in command of the aero-submarine
Coldwater, of the SS-96 class.  The Coldwater was one of the first of
the air and underwater craft which have been so greatly improved since
its launching, and was possessed of innumerable weaknesses which,
fortunately, have been eliminated in more recent vessels of similar
type.

Even when I took command, she was fit only for the junk pile; but the
world-old parsimony of government retained her in active service, and
sent two hundred men to sea in her, with myself, a mere boy, in command
of her, to patrol thirty from Iceland to the Azores.

Much of my service had been spent aboard the great merchantmen-of-war.
These are the utility naval vessels that have transformed the navies of
old, which burdened the peoples with taxes for their support, into the
present day fleets of self-supporting ships that find ample time for
target practice and gun drill while they bear freight and the mails
from the continents to the far-scattered island of Pan-America.

This change in service was most welcome to me, especially as it brought
with it coveted responsibilities of sole command, and I was prone to
overlook the deficiencies of the Coldwater in the natural pride I felt
in my first ship.

The Coldwater was fully equipped for two months' patrolling--the
ordinary length of assignment to this service--and a month had already
passed, its monotony entirely unrelieved by sight of another craft,
when the first of our misfortunes befell.

We had been riding out a storm at an altitude of about three thousand
feet.  All night we had hovered above the tossing billows of the
moonlight clouds.  The detonation of the thunder and the glare of
lightning through an occasional rift in the vaporous wall proclaimed
the continued fury of the tempest upon the surface of the sea; but we,
far above it all, rode in comparative ease upon the upper gale.  With
the coming of dawn the clouds beneath us became a glorious sea of gold
and silver, soft and beautiful; but they could not deceive us as to the
blackness and the terrors of the storm-lashed ocean which they hid.

I was at breakfast when my chief engineer entered and saluted.  His
face was grave, and I thought he was even a trifle paler than usual.

"Well?" I asked.

He drew the back of his forefinger nervously across his brow in a
gesture that was habitual with him in moments of mental stress.

"The gravitation-screen generators, sir," he said.  "Number one went to
the bad about an hour and a half ago.  We have been working upon it
steadily since; but I have to report, sir, that it is beyond repair."

"Number two will keep us supplied," I answered.  "In the meantime we
will send a wireless for relief."

"But that is the trouble, sir," he went on.  "Number two has stopped.
I knew it would come, sir.  I made a report on these generators three
years ago.  I advised then that they both be scrapped.  Their principle
is entirely wrong.  They're done for."  And, with a grim smile, "I
shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing my report was accurate."

"Have we sufficient reserve screen to permit us to make land, or, at
least, meet our relief halfway?" I asked.

"No, sir," he replied gravely; "we are sinking now."

"Have you anything further to report?" I asked.

"No, sir," he said.

"Very good," I replied; and, as I dismissed him, I rang for my wireless
operator.  When