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 anyone 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 Dick 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 grass. 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 Dick.
“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 assure 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—
“There must be snakes, and lions, and tigers.”
“Ask your mamma, my boy,” said Harris, “whether she ever heard of lions and tigers in America?”
Mrs. Weldon was endeavouring to put her little boy at his ease on this point, when Cousin Benedict interposed, saying that although there were no lions or tigers, there were plenty of jaguars and panthers in the New World.
“And won’t they kill us?” demanded Jack eagerly, his apprehensions once more aroused.
“Kill you?” laughed Harris; “why, your friend Hercules here could strangle them, two at a time, one in each hand!”
“But, please, don’t let the panthers come near me!” pleaded Jack, evidently alarmed.
“No, no, Master Jack, they shall not come near you. I will give them a good grip first,” and the giant displayed his two rows of huge white teeth.
Dick Sands proposed that it should be the four younger negroes who should be assigned the task of keeping watch during the night, in attendance upon himself; but Actaeon insisted so strongly upon the necessity of Dick’s having his full share of rest, that the others were soon brought to the same conviction, and Dick was obliged to yield.
Jack valiantly announced his intention of taking one watch, but his sleepy eyelids made it only too plain that he did not know the extent of his own fatigue.
“I am sure there are wolves here,” he said.
“Only such wolves as Dingo would swallow at a mouthful,” said Harris.
“But I am sure there are wolves,” he insisted, repeating the word “wolves” again and again, until he tumbled off to sleep against the side of old Nan. Mrs. Weldon gave her little son a silent kiss; it was her loving “good night.”
Cousin Benedict was missing. Some little time before, he had slipped away in search of cocuyos, or fireflies, which he had heard were common in South America.
Those singular insects emit a bright bluish light from two spots on the side of the thorax, and their colours are so brilliant that they are used as ornaments for ladies’ headdresses. Hoping to secure some
