I pretended to express surprise, though I was bursting with laughter,
for I had become quite satisfied as to the species of the bird. Indeed,
the horrid effluvium that came from the filthy creature, as my companion
carried it in front of me, was quite as strong as that of the carrion
itself; and it was this reaching Ben's nostrils that first led him to
suspect the genuineness of the game. Ben would have known the bird had
it been the Pondicherry vulture--for he had been to the East Indies, and
had seen the latter--or the griffon vulture of yellowish colour, which
he had seen at Gibraltar, and on the Nile; but this one was smaller than
either, and was far more like a turkey than they. It was in reality a
kind of vulture that is found in these parts of Africa, and is not known
anywhere else; for since that time I have visited most parts of the
world, and never saw another of the kind. No wonder, then, my companion
was deceived--for he had never been at the place before, and had never
seen the bird--but now that he had smelt it, there could be no longer
any deception. No game could have emitted such an odour. It was
nothing else than a stinking vulture.
The expression upon Ben's face, as he flung the creature from him, was
ludicrous in the extreme, and I could have laughed at him with all my
might, but that I did not wish to add to my companion's chagrin. I
therefore approached the bird, and examining it with a look of pretended
surprise, gave an affirmative rejoinder to Ben's emphatic declaration.
Leaving it where it had been thrown, we again faced forward, and jogged
leisurely along in hopes of finding some sweeter game.
We had not gone much farther when we entered a forest of palm-trees, and
one of the ardent longings of my youth here met with its full
gratification. If there was anything in foreign lands I had longed
particularly to behold, it was a forest of palm-trees. I had heard that
such existed in South America, Africa, and in the Indian countries, and
I had read some descriptions of them. But I now perceived that the most
glowing description can impart but a very imperfect idea of the
beautiful reality, for no work of Nature I have ever looked upon has
given me more delight than this--the aspect of a palm-wood. There are
many species of palms that do not grow in forests, but only as single
individuals, or groups of two or three together, in the midst of other
trees. Of course, too, there are many sorts of palms, more or less fine
looking, since it is believed that there are at least one thousand
species in existence. All are not equally beautiful to look upon, for
some are stunted, others have crooked stems; still, others have short
mis-shapen trunks; and not a few appear with their leaves on the surface
of the ground, as if without stems altogether.
The sort of palm, however, that constituted the forest into which my
companion and I had now penetrated, was one of the most magnificent of
the whole tribe. I did not then know what species it was, but since I
have learnt all about it. It was no other than the oil-palm, called by
the natives of Western Africa the "_Mava_," and by botanists "_Elais
Guiniensis_," which, when translated into plain English, means the
"oil-palm of Guinea."
It is a palm that somewhat resembles the beautiful cocoa, and by
botanists is placed in the same family. The trunk is very tall, of less
than a foot in diameter, and rising in a straight shaft to the height of
nearly a hundred feet. On the top is a splendid head of leaves like
gigantic ostrich plumes, that gracefully curve over on all sides,
forming a shape like a parachute. Each leaf is full five yards in
length, and of the kind called pinnate--that is divided into numerous
leaflets, each of which is itself more than a foot and a half long,
shaped like the blade of a rapier. Under the shadow of this graceful
plumage the fruit is produced, just below the point where the leaves
radiate from the stem. The fruit is a nut, about the size of a pigeon's
egg, but of a regular oval form, and growing in large clusters, after
the manner of grapes. Around the shell is a thick fleshy covering, very
similar to that which encloses the common walnut, only more of an oily
substance and glutinous texture, and it is from this very substance that
the oil is manufactured. Oil can also be extracted from the kernel, and
this last, though more difficult to be obtained, is of a superior
quality than that taken from the pulp of the rind.
Nothing in the vegetable world can be more beautiful than a full-grown
specimen of the oil-palm, with its cluster of ripe fruit, their
bright-yellow colour contrasting finely with the deep-green of its long
curling fronds, that seem intended, as it were, to protect the rich
bunches from the too powerful rays of a tropic sun. I say nothing in
the vegetable world can be more beautiful than this, unless, indeed, it
be a whole forest of such trees; just such a forest as my companion and
I had now entered. Even the rude sailor was impressed by the grandeur
of the spectacle that surrounded us, and we both stopped mechanically to
gaze upon and admire it.
Far as the eye could reach rose a succession of straight trunks, that
looked as if they had been shaped by mechanical skill and were only
columns supporting the verdant canopy above, and this canopy from the
curling of the fronds and the regular division of the leaflets, appeared
to form grand arches, fretted and chased in the most elaborate manner.
From the columns, near their tops, hung the rich-yellow clusters, like
golden grapes, their brilliant colour adding to the general effect,
while the ground underneath was strewed with thousands of the egg-like
nuts, that had fallen from over-ripeness, and lay scattered over the
surface. It looked like some grand temple of Ceres, some gigantic
orchard of Nature's own planting!
I have thought--but long after that time--I have thought that if King
Dingo Bingo had but set his poor captives, and his bloody myrmidons as
well, to gather that golden crop, to press the oil from those pulpy
pericarps, what a fortune he might have been honestly the master of, and
what unhappiness he might have spared to thousands in whose misery alone
he was now making traffic!