O'er Many Lands, on Many Seas Part 14

"'All, all gone!' cried one poor Caffre woman who could talk English, 'no food for husband, self, or children, and we can't eat the stones.'

"These poor wretches were positively reduced to eating the locusts themselves."

"I shouldn't like to be reduced to eating insects," said I; "fancy eating a stag-beetle fried in oil."

"And yet I doubt," replied the Captain, "if it is a bit worse than eating shrimps or swallowing living oysters. You've seen monkeys eating c.o.c.kroaches?"

"Yes, swallowing them down as fast as they possibly could, and when they couldn't eat any more, stuffing their cheeks for a future feast."

"On the old _Sans Pareil_ we had fifteen apes and monkeys, besides the old cat and a pet bear. Ah! Nie, what fun we did use to have, to be sure!"

"Didn't they fight?"

"No, they all knew their places, and settled down amiably enough. The very large ones were not so nimble, and some of them were very solemn fellows indeed; the smaller gentry used to gather round these for advice, we used to think, and apparently listened with great attention to everything told them, but in the end they always finished up by pulling their professors by their tails. If at any time they did happen to find that old cat's tail sticking out of the cage, oh! woe betide it!

they bent on to it half a dozen or more, and it was for all the world like a caricature of our sailors paying in the end of a rope. Meanwhile the howls of the cat would be audible in the moon, I should think. Then up would rush our old cook with the broom, and there would be a sudden dispersal. But they were never long out of mischief. The little bear came in for a fair share of attention. You see, he wasn't so nimble as the monkeys; they would gather round him, roll him on deck, and scratch him all over. The little Bruin rather liked this, but when three or four of the biggest held his head and three or four others began to stuff c.o.c.kroaches down his throat, he thought it was taking advantage of good nature; he clawed them then and sometimes squeezed them till they squeaked with pain or fright. They used to bathe Bruin, though. The men brought the bath up, then the monkeys teased the bear until he got on his hind-legs and began clawing the air; this was their chance. They would make a sudden rush on the poor little fellow, he would step back, trip, and go souse into the bath. Then the chattering and jumping and grinning of the monkeys, and the laughing and cheering of the men, made a fine row, I can tell you. We had two monkeys that didn't brook much nonsense from the others--an orang, and a long-nosed monkey--we got her in Sumatra--who looked a very curious old customer. The best of it was that the sailors taught the long-nosed one to snuff, and the orang to drink a gla.s.s of rum.

"As soon as the old orang heard the hammering on the rum-cask to knock out the bung, he began to laugh, and he beamed all over when his basin of grog was brought. The other old monkey taking a pinch was a sight to see. She stack to the box at last, and when any of her friends came to see her would present it to them with a 'hae! hae! hae!' that spoke volumes."

"Any other funny pets on the _Sans Pareil_?"

"Oh, yes, lots. We had an adjutant. Ah! Nie, we did use to laugh at that bird, too. Five feet tall he was, and a more conceited old fop of a fellow I never did see. He had a pouch that hung down in front.

Well, he used to eat everything, from a c.o.c.kroach to half a leg of mutton; and when he couldn't hold any more he used to stuff his pouch.

"'Comes in handy, you see,' he seemed to say, alluding to this pouch of his. 'But, dear me!' he would continue, 'ain't I a pretty bird? Look at my pretty little head; there ain't much hair on it; but never mind, look at my bill. There is a bill for you! Just see me eat a fish, or a frog, or a snake! And now, look at my legs. Pretty pair, ain't they?

See me walk!'

"Then he would set off to promenade up and down the deck till the ship gave a bit of a lurch, when down he would go, and the monkeys would all gather round to laugh and jibber, and Snooks, as we called him, would deal blows with his bill in all directions, which the monkeys, nimble though they were, had some difficulty in dodging.

"'Can't you see,' he would say, 'that I didn't tumble at all--that I merely sat down to arrange my pretty feathers?' And Snooks would retain his position for about half an hour, preening his wings, and scratching his pouch with the point of his bill, just to make the monkeys believe he really hadn't fallen, and that his legs were really and truly serviceable sea-legs.

"I've lain concealed and watched the adjutants in an Indian marsh for hours; there they would be in scores, and in every conceivable idiotic position.

"Suddenly, perhaps, one would mount upon an old tree-stump, and spread wide his great wings. 'Hullo, everybody!' he would seem to cry, 'look at _me_. I'm the king o' the marsh! Hurrah!

"'My foot's upon my native heath, My name, Macgregor;'

"or words to that effect, Nie."

"You were always fond of birds, and beasts, and fishes, weren't you, Ben?"

"I was, Nie, lad, and never regretted it but once."

"How was that?"

"I was down with that awful fever we call Yellow-Jack; and, oh! Nie, it seemed to me that at first all the awful creatures ever I had seen on earth or in the waters came back to haunt my dream; and often and often I awoke screaming with fright. Indeed, the dream had hardly faded when my eyes were opened, for I would see, perhaps, a weird-looking camel or dromedary's head drawing away from the bed, or a sea-elephant, a bear, an ursine seal, or an old-fashioned-looking puffin.

"In my fever, thirst was terribly severe, and I used to dream I was diving in the blue pellucid water of the Indian Ocean, down--down--down to beds of snow-white coral sands, with submarine flowers of far more than earthly beauty blooming around me; suddenly I should perceive that I was being watched by the terrible and human-like eyes of a monk shark, or--I shudder even now, Nie, to think of it--I should see an awful head--the uranoscope's--with extended jaws and glaring protruding eyes.

Then I would awake in a fright, shivering with cold, yet bathed in perspiration. But, Nie, when I began to get well a change came o'er the spirit of my dreams. The terrible heads, the horrid fishes, and the slimy monsters of the deep appeared no more; in their place came beautiful birds, and scenery far more lovely than ever I had clapped a waking eye upon. So, in one way, Nie, I was rewarded for my love for natural history."

"What a lovely day!" I remarked, looking around me.

"Yes," replied Ben; "but do you know what this very spot where we are now standing puts me in mind of--lake and all, I mean?"

"I couldn't guess, I'm sure," I replied.

"Well, it is just like the place where I was nearly killed by a panther, and would have been, but for my man Friday."

"He must have been a useful n.i.g.g.e.r, then," I said, "that man Friday."

"He came in precious handy that day, Nie. You see, it was like this:-- Neither he nor I had ever been to South America before; so when we went away shooting together we weren't much used to the cries of the birds or beasts of the woods. The birds seemed to mimic the beasts, and reptiles often made sounds like birds. We had been away through the forest, and such a forest--ah! Nie, you should have seen the foliage and the creepers. We had had pretty good sport for strangers. We shot and bagged everything, snakes and birds and beasts, for I was making up a bag for the doctor, who was a great man for stuffing and setting up. We had just sat down to rest, when suddenly the most awful cries that ever I heard began to echo through the woods.

"They came from a thicket not very far away, and at one moment were plaintive, at the next, discordant, harsh, dreadful.

"'Friday,' I cried, starting up and seizing my gun, 'there is murder, and nothing less, being done in that thicket. Let's run down and see.'

"'It seems so, ma.s.sa,' said Friday; 'it's truly t'rific.'

"We ran on as we spoke, and soon came to the place, and peered cautiously in.

"It was only a howler monkey after all."

"And was nothing the matter with him?" I asked.

"Nothing at all. It was merely this monkey's way of amusing itself."

"Did you shoot him?"

"I never shot a monkey in my life, and never will, Nie; it appears to me almost as bad as shooting a human being.

"'We'll go back to the lake-side now, Friday,' I said, 'and have dinner.'

"Alas! I had no dinner that day, Nie, nor for many a long day to come.

"There is no fiercer wild beast in all the forests or jungles than the cougar or puma, and none more treacherous. I have an idea myself that the darker in colour the more courageous and bloodthirsty they are; however that may be, I would any day as soon fight hand-to-hand with a man-eating tiger as I would with some of the monstrous pumas I have seen in South America. And yet I have heard sportsmen despise them, probably because they have never met one face to face as I have done, and as I did on the day in question.

"We were quietly returning, Friday and I, to the place where we had left our provisions and bags, when he suddenly cried, 'Look, ma.s.sa! look dere!' We had disturbed one of the largest boa-constrictors I had ever seen, and it was moving off, strange to say, instead of boldly attacking us, but hissing and blowing with rage as it did so. It looked to me like the trunk of some mighty palm-tree in motion along the ground.

"'Fire!' I cried; 'fire! Friday.'

"The crack of both of our rifles followed in a second, but though wounded, the terrible creature made good its escape.

"I hurried after him, loading as I went, and thus got parted for a short time from my faithful servant and body-guard.

"I soon discovered, to my sorrow, the reason why the boa had not attacked us.

"In these dense forest lands, the wildest animals prey upon each other.

Thus the boa often seizes and throttles the life out of even the puma, agile and fierce though it be. This particular boa had been watching a puma, evidently, when we came up. The brute gave me not a moment to consider, nor to finish my loading.

"I yelled in terror as I found myself seized by the shoulder. I remember no more then.