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.
