AN INLAND JOURNEY--SLEEPING IN THE WOODS--WILD BEASTS EVERYWHERE--SAD
FATE OF A GAZELLE.
The damage sustained by the _Red Eric_ during the storm was found to be
more severe than was at first supposed. Part of her false keel had been
torn away by a sunken rock, over which the vessel had passed, and
scraped so lightly that no one on board was aware of the fact, yet with
sufficient force to cause the damage to which we have referred. A
slight leak was also discovered, and the injury to the top of the
foremast was neither so easily nor so quickly repaired as had been
anticipated.
It thus happened that the vessel was detained on this part of the
African coast for nearly a couple of weeks, during which time Ailie had
frequent opportunities of going on shore, sometimes in charge of Glynn,
sometimes with Tim Rokens, and occasionally with her father.
During these little excursions the child lived in a world of romance.
Not only were the animals, and plants, and objects of every kind with
which she came in contact, entirely new to her, except in so far as she
had made their acquaintance in pictures, but she invested everything in
the roseate hue peculiar to her own romantic mind. True, she saw many
things that caused her a good deal of pain, and she heard a few stories
about the terrible cruelty of the negroes to each other, which made her
shudder, but unpleasant thoughts did not dwell long on her mind; she
soon forgot the little annoyances or frights she experienced, and
revelled in the enjoyment of the beautiful sights and sweet perfumes
which more than counterbalanced the bad odours and ugly things that came
across her path.
Ailie's mind was a very inquiring one, and often and long did she ponder
the things she saw, and wonder why God made some so very ugly and some
so very pretty, and to what use He intended them to be put. Of course,
in such speculative inquiries, she was frequently very much puzzled, as
also were the companions to whom she propounded the questions from time
to time, but she had been trained to _believe_ that everything that was
made by God was good, whether she understood it or not, and she noticed
particularly, and made an involuntary memorandum of the fact in her own
mind, that ugly things were very few in number, while beautiful objects
were absolutely innumerable.
The trader, who rendered good assistance to Captain Dunning in the
repair of his ship, frequently overheard Ailie wishing "so much" that
she might be allowed to go far into the wild woods, and one day
suggested to the captain that, as the ship would have to remain a week
or more in port, he would be glad to take a party an excursion up the
river in his canoe, and show them a little of forest life, saying at the
same time that the little girl might go too, for they were not likely to
encounter any danger which might not be easily guarded against.
At first the captain shook his head, remembering the stories that were
afloat regarding the wild beasts of those regions. But, on second
thoughts, he agreed to allow a well-armed party to accompany the trader;
the more so that he was urged thereto very strongly by Dr Hopley, who,
being a naturalist, was anxious to procure specimens of the creatures
and plants in the interior, and being a phrenologist, was desirous of
examining what Glynn termed the "bumpological developments of the negro
skull."
On still further considering the matter, Captain Dunning determined to
leave the first mate in charge of the ship, head the exploring party
himself, and take Ailie along with him.
To say that Ailie was delighted, would be to understate the fact very
much. She was wild with joy, and went about all the day, after her
father's decision was announced, making every species of insane
preparation for the canoe voyage, clasping her hands, and exclaiming,
"Oh! _what_ fun!" while her bright eyes sparkled to such an extent that
the sailors fairly laughed in her face when they looked at her.
Preparations were soon made. The party consisted of the captain and his
little child, Glynn Proctor (of course), Dr Hopley, Tim Rokens, Phil
Briant, Jim Scroggles, the trader, and Neepeelootambo, which last had
been by that time regularly domesticated on board, and was now known by
the name of King Bumble, which name, being as good as his own, and more
pronounceable, we shall adopt from this time forward.
The very morning after the proposal was made, the above party embarked
in the trader's canoe; and plying their paddles with the energy of men
bent on what is vulgarly termed "going the whole hog," they quickly
found themselves out of sight of their natural element, the ocean, and
surrounded by the wild, rich, luxuriant vegetation of equatorial Africa.
"Now," remarked Tim Rokens, as they ceased paddling, and ran the canoe
under the shade of a broad palm-tree that overhung the river, in order
to take a short rest and a smoke after a steady paddle of some
miles--"Now this is wot I calls glorious, so it is! Ain't it? Pass the
'baccy this way."
This double remark was made to King Bumble, who passed the tobacco-pouch
to his friend, after helping himself, and admitted that it was
"mugnifercent."
"Here have I bin a-sittin' in this here canoe," continued Rokens, "for
more nor two hours, an' to my sartin knowledge I've seed with my two
eyes twelve sharks (for I counted 'em every one) at the mouth of the
river, and two crocodiles, and the snout of a hopplepittimus; is that
wot ye calls it?"
Rokens addressed his question to the captain, but Phil Briant, who had
just succeeded in getting his pipe to draw beautifully, answered
instead.
"Och! no," said he; "that's not the way to pronounce it at all, at all.
It's a huppi-puppi-puttimus."
"I dun know," said Rokens, shaking his head gravely; "it appears to me
there's too many huppi puppies in that word."
This debate caused Ailie infinite amusement, for she experienced
considerable difficulty herself in pronouncing that name, and had a very
truthful picture of the hippopotamus hanging at that moment in her room
at home.
"Isn't Tim Rokens very funny, papa?" she remarked in a whisper, looking
up in her father's face.
"Hush! my pet, and look yonder. There is something funnier, if I
mistake not."
He pointed, as he spoke, to a ripple in the water on the opposite side
of the river, close under a bank which was clothed with rank,
broad-leaved, and sedgy vegetation. In a few seconds a large crocodile
put up its head, not farther off than twenty yards from the canoe, which
apparently it did not see, and opening its tremendous jaws, afforded the
travellers a splendid view of its teeth and throat. Briant afterwards
asserted that he could see down its throat, and could _almost_ tell what
it had had for dinner!
"Plaze, sir, may I shoot him?" cried Briant, seizing his loaded musket,
and looking towards the captain for permission.
"It's of no use while in that position," remarked the trader, who
regarded the hideous-looking monster with the calm unconcern of a man
accustomed to such sights.
"You may try;" said the captain with a grin. Almost before the words
had left his lips, Phil took a rapid aim and fired. At the same
identical moment the crocodile shut his jaws with a snap, as if he had
an intuitive perception that something uneatable was coming. The bullet
consequently hit his forehead, off which it glanced as if it had struck
a plate of cast-iron. The reptile gave a wabble, expressive of lazy
surprise, and sank slowly back into the slimy water.
The shot startled more than one huge creature, for immediately
afterwards they heard several flops in the water near them, but the tall
sedges prevented their seeing what animals they were. A whole troop of
monkeys, too, went shrieking away into the woods, showing that those
nimble creatures had been watching all their movements, although, until
that moment, they had taken good care to keep themselves out of sight.
"Never fire at a crocodile's head," said the trader, as the party
resumed their paddles, and continued their ascent of the stream; "you
might as well fire at a stone wall. It's as hard as iron. The only
place that's sure to kill it just behind the foreleg. The niggers
always spear them there."
"What do they spear them for?" asked Dr Hopley.
"They eat 'em," replied the trader; "and the meat's not so bad after you
get used to it."
"Ha!" exclaimed Glynn Proctor; "I should fancy the great difficulty is
to get used to it."
"If you ever chance to go for a week without tasting fresh meat,"
replied the trader quietly, "you'll not find it so difficult as you
think."
That night the travellers encamped in the woods, and a wild charmingly
romantic scene their night bivouac was--so thought Ailie, and so, too,
would you have thought, reader, had you been there. King Bumble managed
to kindle three enormous fires, for the triple purpose of keeping the
party warm--for it was cold at night--of scaring away wild beasts, and
of cooking their supper. These fires he fed at intervals during the
whole night with huge logs, and the way in which he made the sparks fly
up in among the strange big leaves of the tropical trees and parasitical
plants overhead, was quite equal, if not superior, to a display of
regular fireworks.
Then Bumble and Glynn built a little platform of logs, on which they
strewed leaves and grass, and over which they spread a curtain or canopy
of broad leaves and boughs. This was Ailie's couch. It stood in the
full blaze of the centre fire, and commanded a view of all that was
going on in every part of the little camp; and when Ailie lay down on it
after a good supper, and was covered up with a blanket, and further
covered over with a sort of gauze netting to protect her from the
mosquitoes, which were very numerous--when all this was done, we say,
and when, in addition to this, she lay and witnessed the jovial laughter
and enjoyment of His Majesty King Bumble, as he sat at the big fire
smoking his pipe, and the supreme happiness of Phil Briant, and the
placid joy of Tim Rokens, and the exuberant delight of Glynn, and the
semi-scientific enjoyment of Dr Hopley as he examined a collection of
rare plants; and the quiet comfort of the trader, and the awkward,
shambling, loose-jointed pleasure of long Jim Scroggles; and the beaming
felicity of her own dear father; who sat not far from her, and turned
occasionally in the midst of the conversation to give her a nod--she
felt in her heart that then and there she had fairly reached the very
happiest moment in all her life.
Ailie gazed in dreamy delight until she suddenly and unaccountably saw
at least six fires, and fully half-a-dozen Bumbles, and eight or nine
Glynns, and no end of fathers, and thousands of trees, and millions of
sparks, all jumbled together in one vast complicated and magnificent
pyrotechnic display; and then she fell asleep.
It is a curious fact, and one for which it is not easy to account, that
however happy you may be when you go to sleep out in the wild woods, you
invariably awake in the morning in possession of a very small amount of
happiness indeed. Probably it is because one in such circumstances is
usually called upon to turn out before he has had enough sleep; perhaps
it may be that the fires have burnt low or gone out altogether, and the
gloom of a forest before sunrise is not calculated to elevate the
spirits. Be this as it may, it is a fact that when Ailie was awakened
on the following morning about daybreak, and told to get up, she felt
sulky--positively and unmistakably sulky.
We do not say that she looked sulky or acted sulkily--far from it; but
she felt sulky, and that was a very uncomfortable state of things. We
dwell a little on this point because we do not wish to mislead our young
readers into the belief that life in the wild woods is _all_ delightful
together. There are shadows as well as lights there--some of them,
alas! so deep that we would not like even to refer to them while writing
in a sportive vein.
But it is also a fact, that when Ailie was fairly up and once more in
the canoe, and when the sun began to flood the landscape with his golden
light and turn the water into liquid fire, her temporary feelings of
discomfort passed away, and her sensation of intense enjoyment returned.
The scenery through which they passed on the second day was somewhat
varied. They emerged early in the day upon the bosom of a large lake
which looked almost like the ocean. Here there were immense flocks of
water-fowl, and among them that strange, ungainly bird, the pelican.
Here, too, there were actually hundreds of crocodiles. The lake was
full of little mud islands, and on all of them these hideous and
gigantic reptiles were seen basking lazily in the sun.
Several shots were fired at them, but although the balls hit, they did
not penetrate their thick hides, until at last one took effect in the
soft part close behind the foreleg. The shot was fired by the trader,
and it killed the animal instantly. It could not have been less than
twenty feet long, but before they could secure it the carcass sank in
deep water.
"What a pity!" remarked Glynn, as the eddies circled round the spot
where it had gone down.
"Ah, so it is!" replied the doctor; "but he would have been rather large
to preserve and carry home as a specimen."
"I ax yer parding, sir," said Tim Rokens, addressing Dr Hopley; "but
I'm curious to know if crocodiles has got phrenoligy?"
"No doubt of it," replied the doctor, laughing. "Crocodiles have
brains, and brains when exercised must be enlarged and developed,
especially in the organs that are most used, hence corresponding
development must take place in the skull."
"I should think, doctor," remarked the captain, who was somewhat
sceptical, "that their bumps of combativeness must be very large."
"Probably they are," continued the doctor; "something like my friend
Phil Briant here. I would venture to guess, now, that his organ of
combativeness is well-developed--let me see."
The doctor, who sat close beside the Irishman, caused him to pull in his
paddle and submit his head for inspection.
"Ah! then, don't operate on me, doctor dear! I've a mortial fear o'
operations iver since me owld grandmother's pig got its foreleg took off
at the hip-jint."
"Hold your tongue, Paddy. Now the bump lies here--just under--eh! why,
you haven't got so much as--what!"
"Plaize, I think it's lost in fat, sur," remarked Briant, in a plaintive
tone, as if he expected to be reprimanded for not having brought his
bump of combativeness along with him.
"Well," resumed the doctor, passing his fingers through Briant's matted
locks, "I suppose you're not so combative as we had fancied--"
"Thrue for you," interrupted Phil.
"But, strange enough, I find your organ of veneration is very large,
_very_ large indeed; singularly so for a man of your character; but I
cannot feel it easily, you have such a quantity of hair."
"Which is it, doctor dear?" inquired Phil.
"This one I am pressing now."
"Arrah! don't press so hard, plaze, it's hurtin' me ye are. Shure
that's the place where I run me head slap up agin the spanker-boom four
days ago. Av _that's_ me bump o' vineration, it wos three times as big
an' twice as hard yisterday--it wos, indade."
Interruptions in this world of uncertainty are not uncommon, and in the
African wilds they are peculiarly frequent. The interruption which
occurred on the present occasion to Dr Hopley's reply was, we need
scarcely remark, exceedingly opportune. It came in the form of a
hippopotamus, which rose so close to the boat that Ailie got a severe
start, and Tim Rokens made a blow at its head with his paddle. It did
not seem to notice the boat, but after blowing a quantity of water from
its nostrils, and opening its horrible mouth as if it were yawning, it
slowly sank again into the flood.
"Wot an 'orrible crittur!" exclaimed Jim Scroggles, in amazement at the
sight.
"The howdacious willain!" remarked Rokens.
"Is that another on ahead?" said Glynn, pointing to an object floating
on the water about a hundred yards up the river: for they had passed the
lake, and were now ascending another stream. "D'ye see it, Ailie?
Look!"
The object sank as he spoke, and Ailie looked round just in time to see
the tail of a crocodile flop the water and follow its owner to the
depths below.
"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Ailie, with one of those peculiar intonations that
told Glynn she saw something very beautiful, and that induced the
remainder of the crew to rest on their paddles, and turn their eyes in
the direction indicated.
They did not require to ask what she saw, for the child's finger
directed their eyes to a spot on the bank of the river, where, under the
shadow of a spreading bush with gigantic leaves, stood a lovely little
gazelle. The graceful creature had trotted down to the stream to drink,
and did not observe the canoe, which had been on the point of rounding a
bank that jutted out into the river where its progress was checked. The
gazelle paused a moment, looked round to satisfy itself that no enemy
was near, and then put its lips to the water.
Alas! for the timid little thing! There were enemies near it and round
it in all directions. There were leopards and serpents of the largest
size in the woods, and man upon the river--although on this occasion it
chanced that most of the men who gazed in admiration at its pretty form
were friends. But its worst enemy, a crocodile, was lurking close under
the mud-bank at its feet.
Scarcely had its parched lips reached the stream when a black snout
darted from the water, and the next instant the gazelle was struggling
in the crocodile's jaws. A cry of horror burst from the men in the
boat, and every man seized a musket; but before an aim could be taken
the struggle was over; the monster had dived with its prey, and nothing
but a few streaks of red foam floated on the troubled water.
Ailie did not move. She stood with her hands tightly clasped and her
eyes starting almost out of their sockets. At last her feelings found
vent. She threw her arms round her father's neck, and burying her face
in his bosom, burst into a passionate flood of tears.