"Our skipper's as right as can be, Morny," said Rodd the next evening,
as the lad was once more on board the schooner, and they were sailing
gently along about a mile from shore, the brig following pretty close
behind with the water streaming down from her scuppers as the work at
one of the pumps was still kept up.
For there was the coast, much as he had described, an undulating line of
the singular dark green mangrove forest that looked low and dwarfed,
and, now that the tide was low, showed to full advantage, the singular
ramification of its roots giving the bushy forest the appearance of
standing up upon a wilderness of jagged and tangled scaffolding through
which the sea washed over the muddy shore.
"Not pleasant-looking, gentlemen," said the skipper, coming up to them.
"Not the sort of place where you would like to settle down and build a
country house."
"Why, it's horrible," cried Rodd. "But why should it be so muddy here,
instead of being all nice clean sand?"
"Because it's the edge of a low swampy country, my lad, where great
rivers come from inland and bring down the soil of thousands of miles."
"But I always thought Africa was a sandy desert place where lions were
roving about, and where Mungo Park went travelling to Timbuctoo and
places like that."
"Yes, my lad," said the skipper; "but that's the Africa of the old
books, and there's plenty of it like that on the east side and up in the
north and where old Mungo Park went to, no doubt; but all along this
coast it isn't a dry and thirsty land, but as soon as you get through
the mangroves, full of great forests and big rivers. Why, look at the
sea here. Right away out it was all as clear as crystal; now here
there's mud enough for anything."
"But we shan't want to stop long in a muddy river with banks like this,
captain," said Morny.
"Don't you be in too great a hurry to judge, sir," said the skipper. "I
have sailed up one or two of these rivers in my time, and when you get
higher up you will find it very different: big forests with grand trees,
rivers with fine water, and places beautiful enough for anything, such
as will satisfy travellers who don't want ports and towns. You and the
doctor, Mr Rodd, will be able to get some fine shooting up there, if
you like, and fine fishing too. Do you want to get any birds of all the
colours of the rainbow?"
"Why, of course!" cried Rodd eagerly.
"Well, there you'll find them, sir--singing birds too, green and gold
and scarlet and grey, and some with long tails, and some with short.
Only," continued the skipper dryly, and with a grim smile at the two
lads, "they don't sing like our birds at home, but in a foreign lingo,
all squeak and scream and squawk, through their having crooked hook
beaks. They are what people at home call parrots and parakeets."
"Oh, that's what you mean!" cried Rodd, laughing.
"Of course, sir--them as you teaches to talk. Wicked 'uns, some of
them, ready enough to learn anything the sailors teach them, but sulky
as slugs when you want them to learn anything good."
"But there are plenty of them, captain?" said Rodd.
"Thicker than crows at home, sir. Then what do you say to monkeys?"
"That I should like to see them alive in the forest."
"Well, there you have them, sir; and you could come across plenty, if
you went far enough, big as boys."
"Ah, now you are telling travellers' tales, captain," said Rodd.
"Nay, my lad, not I. I have seen them as big as boys, only not so tall,
because their legs have all gone into arms. Little, short, crooked
legs, they have got, as makes them squatty. But when they stand up
their arms are so long that they nearly touch the ground. Big as boys?
Why, they are bigger! I never saw boys with such big heads. And they
all look as if they had been born old; wrinkled faces and long shaggy
black hair."
"Now, look here, captain, I don't mind you joking me, but don't play
tricks with the Viscount here."
"Not I, my lad. I am just telling you the honest truth, and you may
believe me."
"But where's the river where these things are?"
"We shall come across one of them before long, sir," said the skipper.
"I expected to have found one that suited my book hours ago. I was very
nearly going up that one just about dinner-time."
"Oh, but that was only a little inlet," said Rodd.
"Looked so to you, sir, but all along here the shore's full of inlets,
as you call them; but they are deep water and go winding in and out, and
perhaps open out into big sheets of water like lagoons, as they call
them. But I am of opinion that if we don't turn into one to-night we
shall do so some time to-morrow, and perhaps find just the sort of spot
we want. It we don't we will go a bit farther south."
"But take us up beyond all this horrible mangrove swamp," said Rodd.
"You leave that to me, sir," said the skipper. "We have got a good bit
of work to do with that brig, and I want to bring my lads out again, and
the Count's too, well and hearty, not half of them eaten up with fever
and t'other half sucked into dry skins by the mosquitoes. No, we shall
have to sail right up to where it gets to be a forest and park-like
country."
"There'll be no towns?" said Rodd.
"No, sir, but we might come across a blacks' village, and if we do we
can anchor somewhere on the other shore."
Another afternoon had come before the mangrove forest seemed to turn
inland and run right up the country, just as if they had come to the end
of that portion of the land; but miles away the skipper pointed out that
the forest began again and also swept inland, while by using the glass
the lads were able to trace the configuration of the coast, and saw that
the two lines of coast north and south came together away east.
"There," said the skipper, "what do you say to this for the mouth of a
big river?"
"River?" said the doctor, coming up.
"Yes, sir--or estuary, which you like. This is the sort of one that
will suit us, though as far as I can make out it is not down in my
chart. So all the more likely to suit our book."
"But do you think it's a river, and not a bend of the coast?" asked the
doctor.
"If it was a bend of the coast, sir, the tide wouldn't be flowing in
like that. It's a good-sized tidal river, sir, and we are going to sail
in as far as we can get before dark, and if all turns out as I expect,
we shall be carried in past the mangroves and be able to moor to-night
perhaps to forest trees."
"And if we don't?" said Rodd.
"Why, then we shall anchor, and find plenty of good holding ground."
The tide carried them in rapidly, and a nice soft breeze filled the
sails, bearing them onward till the mangrove swamp on either hand began
to close in rapidly, while towards evening they were gliding where the
banks were about a mile apart, and just at sunset muddy patches began to
make their appearance, upon which Rodd noticed three times over,
portions of the rugged trunks of trees that had been denuded of every
branch as they floated down with the stream.
All at once, just where the mud glistened ruddily in the rays of the
setting sun, Rodd started, for a thick stumpy tree trunk suddenly began
to move gently, then glided a few feet over the mud, and finally went
into the river with a tremendous splash.
"Why, what's that?" cried Rodd excitedly.
"Croc," grunted the skipper gruffly. "Thousands of them along here."