Dick Sands, the Boy Captain Part 20

"My box and my net! but surely not my spectacles!" almost shrieked the excited entomologist.

"Yes, and your spectacles as well!" added Mrs. Weldon mercilessly; "I am glad you have reminded me of another means of reducing you to obedience!"

The triple penalty of which he was thus warned had the effect of keeping him from wandering away for the best part of the next hour, but he was soon once more missing from the ranks; he was manifestly incorrigible; the deprivation of box, net, and spectacles would, it was acknowledged, be utterly without avail to prevent him from rambling. Accordingly it was thought better to let him have his own way, especially as Hercules volunteered to keep his eye upon him, and to endeavour to guard the worthy naturalist as carefully as he would himself protect some precious

[Ill.u.s.tration: The way across the forest could scarcely be called a path.]

specimen of a lepidoptera. Further anxiety on his account was thus put to rest.

In spite of Harris's confident a.s.sertion that they were little likely to be molested by any of the nomad Indians, the whole company rejoiced in feeling that they were well armed, and they resolved to keep in a compact body. The way across the forest could scarcely be called a path; it was, in fact, little more than the track of animals, and progress along it was necessarily very slow; indeed it seemed impossible, at the rate they started, to accomplish more than five or six miles in the course of twelve hours.

The weather was beautifully fine; the sun ascended nearly to the zenith, and its rays, descending almost perpendicularly, caused a degree of heat which, as Harris pointed out, would have been unendurable upon the open plain, but was here pleasantly tempered by the shelter of the foliage.

Most of the trees were quite strange to them. To an experienced eye they were such as were remarkable more for their character then for their size. Here, on one side, was the bauhinia, or mountain ebony; there, on the other, the molompi or pterocarpus, its trunk exuding large quant.i.ties of resin, and of which the strong light wood makes excellent oars or paddles; further on were fustics heavily charged with colouring matter, and guaiac.u.ms, twelve feet in diameter, surpa.s.sing the ordinary kind in magnitude, yet far inferior in quality.

d.i.c.k Sands kept perpetually asking Harris to tell him the names of all these trees and plants.

"Have you never been on the coast of South America before?" replied Harris, without giving the explicit information that was sought.

"Never," said d.i.c.k; "never before. Nor do I recollect ever having seen any one who has."

"But surely you have explored the coasts of Columbia or Patagonia," Harris continued.

d.i.c.k avowed that he had never had the chance.

"But has Mrs. Weldon never visited these parts? Our countrymen, I know, are great travellers."

"No," answered Mrs. Weldon; "my husband's business called him occasionally to New Zealand, but I have accompanied him nowhere else. With this part of Lower Bolivia we are totally unacquainted."

"Then, madam, I can only a.s.sure you that you will see a most remarkable country, in every way a very striking contrast to the regions of Peru, Brazil, and the Argentine republic. Its animal and vegetable products would fill a naturalist with unbounded wonder. May I not declare it a lucky chance that has brought you here?"

"Do not say chance, Mr. Harris, if you please."

"Well, then, madam; providence, if you prefer it," said Harris, with the air of a man incapable of recognizing the distinction.

After finding that there was no one amongst them who was acquainted in any way with the country through which they were travelling, Harris seemed to exhibit an evident pleasure in pointing out and describing by name the various wonders of the forest. Had Cousin Benedict's attainments included a knowledge of botany he would have found himself in a fine field for researches, and might perchance have discovered novelties to which his own name could be appended in the catalogues of science. But he was no botanist; in fact, as a rule, he held all blossoms in aversion, on the ground that they entrapped insects into their corollae, and poisoned them sometimes with venomous juices. New and rare insects, however, seemed hereabouts to be wanting.

Occasionally the soil became marshy, and they all had to wend their way over a perfect network of tiny rivulets that were affluents of the river from which they had started. Sometimes these rivulets were so wide that they could not be pa.s.sed without a long search for some spot where they could be forded; their banks were all very damp, and in many places abounded with a kind of reed, which Harris called by its proper name of papyrus.

As soon as the marshy district had been pa.s.sed, the forest resumed its original aspect, the footway becoming narrow as ever. Harris pointed out some very fine ebony-trees,

[Ill.u.s.tration: Occasionally the soil became marshy.]

larger than the common sort, and yielding a wood darker and more durable than what is ordinarily seen in the market. There were also more mango-trees than might have been expected at this distance from the sea; a beautiful white lichen enveloped their trunks like a fur; but in spite of their luxuriant foliage and delicious fruit, Harris said that there was not a native who would venture to propagate the species, as the superst.i.tion of the country is that "whoever plants a mango, dies!"

At noon a halt was made for the purpose of rest and refreshment. During the afternoon they arrived at some gently rising ground, not the first slopes of hills, but an insulated plateau which appeared to unite mountains and plains. Notwithstanding that the trees were far less crowded and more inclined to grow in detached groups, the numbers of herbaceous plants with which the soil was covered rendered progress no less difficult than it was before. The general aspect of the scene was not unlike an East Indian jungle. Less luxuriant indeed than in the lower valley of the river, the vegetation was far more abundant than that of the temperate zones either of the Old or New continents. Indigo grew in great profusion, and, according to Harris's representation, was the most encroaching plant in the whole country; no sooner, he said, was a field left untilled, than it was overrun by this parasite, which sprang up with the rank growth of thistles or nettles.

One tree which might have been expected to be common in this part of the continent seemed entirely wanting. This was the caoutchouc. Of the various trees from which India-rubber is procured, such as the Ficus prinoides, the Castilioa elastica, the Cecropia peltata, the Callophora utilis, the Cameraria latifolia, and especially the Siphonia elastica, all of which abound in the provinces of South America, not a single specimen was to be seen. d.i.c.k had promised to show Jack an India-rubber-tree, and the child, who had conjured up visions of squeaking dolls, b.a.l.l.s, and other toys growing upon its branches, was loud and constant in his expressions of disappointment.

"Never mind, my little man," said Harris; "have patience, and you shall see hundreds of India-rubber-trees when you get to the hacienda."

"And will they be nice and elastic?" asked Jack, whose ideas upon the subject were of the vaguest order.

"Oh, yes, they will stretch as long as you like," Harris answered, laughing. "But here is something to amuse you," he added, and as he spoke, he gathered a fruit that looked as tempting as a peach.

"You are quite sure that it is safe to give it him?" said Mrs. Weldon anxiously.

"To satisfy you, madam, I will eat one first myself."

The example he set was soon followed by all the rest. The fruit was a mango; that which had been so opportunely discovered was of the sort that ripens in March or April; there is a later kind which ripens in September. With his mouth full of juice, Jack p.r.o.nounced that it was very nice, but did not seem to be altogether diverted from his sense of disappointment at not coming to an India-rubber-tree. Evidently the little man thought himself rather injured.

"And d.i.c.k promised me some humming-birds too!" he murmured.

"Plenty of humming-birds for you, when you get to the farm; lots of them where my brother lives," said Harris.

And to say the truth, there was nothing extravagant in the way the child's antic.i.p.ations had been raised, for in Bolivia humming-birds are found in great abundance. The Indians, who weave their plumage into all kinds of artistic designs, have bestowed the most poetical epithets upon these gems of the feathered race. They call them "rays of the sun," and "tresses of the day-star;" at one time they will describe them as "king of flowers," at another as "blossoms of heaven kissing blossoms of earth," or as "the jewel that reflects the sunbeam." In fact their imagination seems to have shaped a suitable distinction for almost every one of the 150 known species of this dazzling little beauty.

But however numerous humming-birds might be expected to be in the Bolivian forest, they proved scarce enough at present, and Jack had to content himself with Harris's representations that they did not like solitude, but would be found plentifully at San Felice, where they would be heard all day long humming like a spinning-wheel. Already Jack said he longed to be there, a wish that was so unanimously echoed by all the rest, that they resolved that no stoppage should be allowed beyond what was absolutely indispensable.

After a time the forest began to alter its aspect. The trees were even less crowded, opening now and then into wide glades. The soil, cropping up above its carpet of verdure, exhibited veins of rose granite and syenite, like plates of lapis lazuli; on some of the higher ground, the fleshy tubers of the sarsaparilla plant, growing in a hopeless entanglement, made progress a matter of still greater difficulty than in the narrow tracks of the dense forest.

At sunset the travellers found that they had accomplished about eight miles from their starting-point. They could not prognosticate what hardships might be in store for them on future days, but it was certain that the experiences of the first day had been neither eventful nor very fatiguing. It was now unanimously agreed that they should make a halt for the night, and as little was to be apprehended from the attacks either of man or beast, it was considered unnecessary to form anything like a regular encampment. One man on guard, to be relieved every few hours, was presumed to be sufficient. Admirable shelter was offered by an enormous mango, the spreading foliage of which formed a kind of natural verandah, sweeping the ground so thoroughly that any one who chose could find sleeping-quarters in its very branches.

Simultaneously with the halting of the party there was heard a deafening tumult in the upper boughs. The mango was the roosting place of a colony of grey parrots, a noisy, quarrelsome, and rapacious race, of whose true characteristics the specimens seen in confinement in Europe give no true conception. Their screeching and chattering were such a nuisance that d.i.c.k Sands wanted to fire a shot into the middle of them, but Harris seriously dissuaded him, urging that the report of firearms would only serve to reveal their own presence, whilst their greatest safety lay in perfect silence.

Supper was prepared. There was little need of cooking. The meal, as before, consisted of preserved meat and biscuit. Fresh water, which they flavoured with a few drops of rum, was obtained from an adjacent stream which trickled through the gra.s.s. By way of dessert they had an abundance of ripe mangoes, and the only drawback to their general enjoyment was the discordant outcry which the parrots kept up, as it were in protest against the invasion of what they held to be their own rightful domain.

It was nearly dark when supper was ended. The evening shade crept slowly upwards to the tops of the trees, which soon stood out in sharp relief against the lighter background of the sky, while the stars, one by one, began to peep. The wind dropped, and ceased to murmur through the foliage; to the general relief, the parrots desisted from their clatter; and as Nature hushed herself to rest, she seemed to be inviting all her children to follow her example.

"Had we not better light a good large fire?" asked d.i.c.k.

"By no means," said Harris; "the nights are not cold, and under this wide-spreading mango the ground is not likely to be damp. Besides, as I have told you before, our best security consists in our taking care to attract no attention whatever from without."

Mrs. Weldon interposed,-

"It may be true enough that we have nothing to dread from the Indians, but is it certain that there are no dangerous quadrupeds against which we are bound to be upon our guard?"

Harris answered,-

"I can positively a.s.sure you, madam, that there are no animals here but such as would be infinitely more afraid of you than you would be of them."

"Are there any woods without wild beasts?" asked Jack.

"All woods are not alike, my boy," replied Harris;

"this wood is a great park. As the Indians say, 'Es como el Pariso;' it is like Paradise."

Jack persisted,-