of a whole clump of them, where the smooth face of the cove showed you their scarlet clusters of flowers and green round pods hanging over it, hidden as they were from above. Every man of us made a clutch, and the stem almost lifted Simm out of the boat with it, as it sprang back into the brake, rousing out a shower of gaudy-coloured butterflies, and a cloud of musquitoes, and making the paroquets scream inside; while the cadets' mouths were so full they couldn't speak, the reefer making a gulp with the juice seeming to come out at his eyes, the sailor spitting out his quid and stuffing in a banana, and the ladies hoping they were safe to eat; as I peeled the soft yellow rind off, and handed one to Violet Hyde, which she tasted at once. But if ever one enters into the heart of things in the tropics, I'd say 'tis when that same delicious taste melts through and through and all over you, after chewing salt junk for a space. I remember one foremast-man, who was always so drunk ashore he used to remember nothing in India but "scoffing bloody benanny," as he called it; "but hows'ever, Jack," he'd say, "'twas blessed good, ye know, and I'm on the look-out for a berth again, jist for to go and have another." One of us looked to the other, and Miss Hyde laughed and coloured a bit when I offered her a second, while her father said full five minutes after, "Gad, Violet, it almost made me think I saw Garden Reach in the Hooghly, and the Baboo's Ghaut!"

*

one

This whole time we couldn't have got more than three-quarters of a mile from where the ship lay, when all at once the close growth on our left hand began to break into low bush, and at length a spot offered where we might get ashore tolerably, with two or three big red ant-hills heaped up out of the close prickly-pear plant, and the black ants streaming over the bank, as well as up the trunk of a large tree. The monkies were keeping up a chattering stir everywhere about; and two or three bright-green little lizards changing into purple, and back again, as they lay gleaming in the sun on the sides of the ant-heaps, and darted

their long tongues out like silver bodkins at the ants coming past. In we shoved with a cheer, and had scarce moored to the tree ere the ladies were being handed out and tripping over the ground-leaves to the ankles, starting on again at every rustle and prick, for fear of snakes; till the bowman in charge was left in the boat by himself, and, there being seven of us with guns over our arms, the next notion of the griffins was to get a sight of some "natives."

In fact there was a sort of a half track leading off near the bank, through among the long coarse grass and the ferny sprouts of young cocoas, and a wide stretch of open country seen beyond it, dotted all over with low clumps of trees and bush rounded off in the gush of light, that gave it all a straw-coloured tint up to where a bare reddish-looking ridge of hill looked over a long swell of wild forest, off a hot, pale, cloudless sky. Here and there you saw the shadow of one bluff lying purple on the side of another, and a faint blue peak between, letting north'ard into some pass through the hills, but no signs of life save a few dun big-headed buffaloes feeding about a swampy spot not very far off, and rather too shaggy, by all appearance, to make pleasant company. Accordingly, we held for a few yards under the shade, where the fat mid, thinking to show off his knowingness by getting cocoa-nuts for the ladies, began to shy balls of mud from the creek-side at the monkeys in the trees. However, he brought us rather more than he bargained for, till the whole blessed jungle seemed to be gathering between us and the boat to pelt us to death with nuts as big as eighteen-pound shot, husks and all; so off we had to hurry into the glare again, Sir Charles half carrying his daughter through guinea-grass up to the waist-when somebody felt the smell of smoke, and next minute we broke out near it, wreathing up white from inside a high bamboo fence, propped up and tied all along with cocoa-nut husk. "What the devil!" shouted the foremost cadet, as soon as he found the opening, they're cannibals!-roasting a black child,

by heaven!" and in he dashed, being no chicken of a fellow ashore at any rate, the others after him, while the Judge, Simm, and I, kept outside with the ladies, who were all of a shudder, of course, what with the thought, and what with the queer scent of roast meat that came to us. "Ha, ha!" laughed the cadet next moment, "it's only a monkey, after all!-come in, though, Sir Charles, if you please, sir,-nobody here, ladies." There, accordingly, was the little skinned object twirling slowly between two bamboo sticks, over a fire beneath two or three immense green leaves on a frame, with its knees up not to let its legs burn; about a dozen half-open sheds and huts, like little corn-stacks, thatched close with reeds, and hung with wattled mats of split bamboo, giving the place more the look of a farmyard than a village; as there was a big tree spreading in the middle, a few plantains, yams, and long maize-stalks flowering out of the coarse guinea-grass which the niggers hadn't taken the trouble to tread down all round inside of the fence. However, we weren't long of perceiving an old gray-headed black sitting on his hams against the post of a hut, watching us all the time; and a villanously ugly old thief he looked, with a string of Aggry beads about his head, and a greegree charm-bag hung round his shrivelled neck, which was stuck through a hole in some striped piece of stuff that fell over to his knees, as he sat mumbling and croaking to himself, and leering out of the yellows of his eyes, though too helpless to stir. Something out of the way attracted my notice, glittering in front of the hut over his head; but, on stepping up to it, I wasn't a little surprised to find it the stern-board of some small vessel or other, with the tarnished gilt ornament all round, and the name in large white letters,"Martha Cobb," the port, Boston, still to be made out, smaller, below. This I didn't think so much of in itself, as the craft might have been lost; till, on noticing that the old fellow's robe was neither more nor less than a torn American ensign, in spite of his growls and croaks I walked past him into the hut, where there was a whole lot of marlinspikes, keys,

and such like odds and ends, carefully stored up in a bag, marked with the same name, besides a stewpan with some ostrich feathers stuck where the handle had been, as if this rascally black sinner wore it on his head on state occasions, being probably the head-man and a justice of the peace! What struck me most, though, was a pocket-book with a letter inside it, in a woman's hand, addressed to the master of the brig Martha Cobb; dated a dozen years before, yellow and fusty, and with tarry finger-marks on it, as if the poor skipper, God knows, had read it over and over in his cabin many a fresh breeze betwixt there and Boston. I put it in my pocket, with a curse to the old black devil, as he croaked out and fell on his face trying to bite me with his filed teeth when I passed out, to follow the rest out of the bamboo pen; wondering, of course, where all the negroes could be, unless they were dodging about the river shore to watch the Indiaman,-little chance as there was of their trying the same joke with the Seringapatam as with the Martha Cobb.

As for the women, however, I had scarce joined our party going out, when we met a half-naked black hag with a bunch of cocoa-nuts and husk. The moment she saw us she gave a squeal like an old hen, and fell flat, while several younger ones, jogging along with their naked black picaninnies on their backs, turned tail and were off with a scream. Next minute we were almost as startled as they could be, when three plump young jetty damsels dropped down right into the bushes alongside of us, off as many tall cocoas which they'd been climbing by a band round them, for the nuts. "Mercy on us!" said the eldest of our lady-passengers: and it was rather queer, since they had nothing earthly upon them save very very short pet-I beg your pardon, ma'am, but I did'nt know any other wordhowever off they scampered for the woods, Simm and one of the cadets hard after them, and we turning away to smother our laughter, especially as the griffin had forgot his mother being with us. The middy being first started, he was a good way ahead, when all at once the sternmost of the

black girls tripped in the band she had over her shoulder, Simm giving a cheer as he made prize of his chase; but scarce before the whole three of the dark beauties had him smothered up amongst them, laughing, yelling, and squalling as they hauled him about; till I saw the dirk Simm sported glitter in one of their hands, and I made towards the spot in the notion of their finishing him in right earnest. The black damsels ran off together as the unlucky reefer picked himself up, coming to us with his hair rubbed up like a brush, his cap out of shape in his hand and the gold band off it, his red face shining, and all the gilt anchor-buttons off his jacket, besides being minus his dirk. "Simm! Simm! my fine fellow!" said his friend the cadet, like to die with laughing, "what-what-did they do to you? why, your head looks like a chimneysweep's mop!" Simm knocked his cap against a tree to set it right, without a word, and we followed the others to the boat, where he swore, however, that he'd kissed 'em all three; at which Mrs Atkins fairly took him a slap on the side of the head, saying he was a nasty improper boy, and she was glad his poor mother could'nt see him run after creatures of that kind in African woods-"Natives, indeed!" said she, "I have heard so often of native modesty, too, in books; but, after all, there's nothing like experience, I think, Sir Charles?" "Certainly not, ma'am," replied the Judge, humouring her, as she hadn't often had the chance of speaking to him before; "tis almost as bad in India, though, you know!" "Oh, there, Sir Charles," said the lady, "I never happened to go out, of course, except in the carriage!" Ah," said the Judge coolly, "you should try an elephant sometimes, ma'am."

66

After this, as Sir Charles was bent on getting a shot at something better, with a glass or two of Madeira to refresh us, we pulled farther still up the small river, passing the mouth of a deep marshy inlet, where I noticed a few long canoes belonging to the Congo village we had seen; the close, heavy heat of the woods getting if possible worse, and the rank green growth topping up round us as flat as before; when the sound of a loud

rush of water up-stream broke upou us through the bush to northward, the surface rippling, and a slight cool breath seeming to flutter across it now and then, the very noise putting fresh soul into you. Suddenly we opened out on a broad bend where it was hard work to force her round, and next moment a low fall was gleaming before us, where a hill-stream came washing and plashing over one wide rocky step above another in the turn, then sweeping out of a deep pool to both hands, and running away ahead, in between the spread of trees, seemingly to a sort of a lagoon, where you saw the light in the middle glancing bright down upon its face. A broad blue burst of air and light struck down along the hollow the stream rushed out of, off the roots of a regular mountain, leaning back to the sky, with its big tufted knolls and its shady rifts thrown out blue beyond one or two thick scaly-stemmed date-trees, waving their long, feathery, fringe-like leaves to the least bit of a breeze, on as many rough points near at hand: the whole shape of the mountain you couldn't see for the huge mahogany trees, teak, and African oak, rising up over one shoulder into a lump of green forest. In five minutes more we were through into the lagoon, which very possibly took round into the main river again, only the opposite end, to our surprise, was all afloat with logs of big timber choking it up, so that there we must stick or go back upon our wake.

However, the lagoon itself being broad enough and round enough in all conscience, with a deep hollow opening up out of it on the high ground, the Judge and the cadets thought a better place couldn't have been chosen for landing after a little sport, while we left the fair ladies to rest in the cool, and look at the lotuslilies spread all over one cove of it, floating white on their large leaves. The green edge of scum ran about the black shadow on the rest of it, gathering round where a big branch or two had fallen in, with the hot white sky looking bluer out through the broad leaves coming together aloft, and the showers of little sharp ones in the tamarind twigs, mangoes, iron-wood, sumach, and all sorts; while here and

there a knot of crimson blossoms looked out from under the boughs in the dark, humming with small flies. Beautiful spot as it was everyway, especially after the heat, yet I didn't much like the idea of letting the ladies stay by themselves, except the sailor and the kitmagar. Nothing particular had turned up to trouble us, certainly; but I daresay 'twas because there was one of them I never looked at without her soft fairy-like air making me think of something that might happen to her, life-like though she seemed. When I saw a big branch over her head, I kept fancying what it would do if it fell and now, the thumping slabs and stones we scrambled over up into the gully toward the mountain, seemed to have come tumbling down off it to the very water's edge, covered with nets of thick creeping plants, and trails of flat fingery-leaved flowers, such as you see in hot-houses at home. A few yards higher, too, where the ground broke away into a slanting hollow out of the bush, 'twas all trampled and crushed, half-withering together in the heat of the sun, the young trees twisted and broken, and two or three good-sized ones lying out from the roots, which I set to the score of the timberers rolling down their logs, for some craft that evidently got their cargoes hereaway. After all, the thought of a slap at some wild game was tempting enough, the Judge appearing to consider any one but a sportsman nobody at all: so up we went behind him out of the gully, till we were all blowing like so many porpoises on the head of it, Sir Charles raising his finger as we peeped across a grassy slope right under us, where a whole drove of small slenderlegged antelopes were feeding. We had just time to rest, getting a breath of air off the heights, when one of the foremost lifted its head, listening the opposite way from us; next moment the entire scatter of them came sweeping direct over to leeward in a string, we could almost catch their bright black eyes through the grass, when the crack of our seven barrels turned them bolt off at a corner, and they were gone like wind on water. All of us had missed save Sir Charles Hyde; but his rifle-bullet had sent one of the antelopes springing up in the air

ten feet or so, rolling over and over into the grass again, where we found it lying with its tongue out, and its large eye glazing amongst the blades and dust-a pair of huge turkey-buzzards falling, as it were, out of two specks in the sun above us, already, and rising with an ugly flap while we got round the dead creature.

"Hallo!" said the mid, suddenly, looking back over toward the hollow we'd come out of; "what's that?"

From where we stood we could just see through the wild cane to the mouth of the gully, half a mile down or more, leading upon the trees by the lagoon. I thought I could hear a dull heavy sound now and then going thump thump down the hollow and along it, the stones rumbling from one spot to another at the root of the hill; but noticing a light smoke rising farther into the course of the creek, with a faint echo of axes at work somewhere in the woods below, I wasn't sorry to find the timberers were still in the river, showing we weren't the only civilised folks that thought it fit to visit. Perhaps it might have been a quarter of an hour more, however, and we were all looking out sharp for birds of any kind to pop at, happening to turn my head, I saw the long reeds were moving about the banks below, and the trees twisting about furiously; and no sooner had I made a few paces than, good heavens !-right in the break of the trees at the landing-place-there was a huge brute of some sort coming slowly up out of the water; then another, and another, glistening wet in the bright light as the shadow of the branches slipped behind them. A blindness came over my eyes, and I had scarce time to make out the big block-like heads and moving trunks of five or six black African elephants, ere the whole case flashed upon me, and away I dashed full speed down the slope. The big beasts were turning quietly off into the hollow, and two or three of their calves trotted after them out of the bushes, munching the young canestalks as they lifted their pillars of legs, and their tufty little tails, when I passed a fire of sticks blazing under a slab of rock, with the Judge's guinea-fowl plucked and roasting before it from a string, the bowman's tar

paulin and his pipe lying near by-a sight that doubled the horror in me, to know he had left the boat at all; and no doubt, as I thought, taken fright and run off, man-o'-war's-man though he was. I made three springs over the stones down to the water, terrified to look in, hearing it, as I did, splash and wash about the sides, up among the leaves of the trees; while a couple of monstrous brutes were to be seen by the light in the midst of it, still wallowing about, and seeming to enjoy sending the whole pool in wide rings and waves as far as it would go, with the noise besides: the one half swimming, and the biggest standing aground as he poured the water out of his long trunk all over his back, then broke off a branch and waved it to and fro like a fan round his flapping leathery ears.

Such a moment I hope never to know again-not the least sign of the boat could I see in the green black blink of the place, after the glare above; and I stood like a madman at the thought of what the herd of monsters had done, when they came suddenly down upon it; then I gave a wild cry, and levelled my ship's musket at the big elephant's head, as he brought his small cunning eye slowly to bear upon me, dropped the branch, and began to swing his forehead, all the time looking at me and wading out to the shallow-by Jove! my flesh creeps at it just now-though I couldn't have stirred for worlds till he was close enough for me to fire into that devilish eye of his. 'Twas no more than the matter of half a minute -till you may fancy what I felt to catch sight all at once of the cutter splashing up and down in the gloom below the branches, the ladies and the Hindoo crouching down terrified together, except Violet Hyde, who stood straight, holding the boat firm in by a bough, her white face fixed through the shadow, and her hair floating out of her straw-bonnet each time her head went up among the leaves, with her glittering eyes on the two elephants. Suddenly some heavy black figure dropped almost right over her into the boat, and she let go with a low ery, and sank down with her hands over her eyes; when they went sheering out towards the creek, the fore

topman handling his boat-hook in her bow, without his tarpaulin. As for the wild elephants, I had just time to come to myself before the foremost had his feet on the stones below me, getting cautiously out of the pool; these awkward antics of theirs being possibly signs of too much satisfaction in a bathe, for them to show aught like fury, if you didn't rouse them; so I was slipping quietly round the nearest tree when I heard the cadets halloing up the hill. The old bull-elephant seemed a dangerous customer to meet, and I was hurrying over the dead grass and branches to give warning, just as Sir Charles Hyde could be seen coming down before the rest, his rifle over his shoulder. However he brought up, the moment I sang out to stop: both the elephants were stalking off lower down into the hollow, and I dropped behind the slab where Tom Wilkes had been roasting his bird, when some fool of a cadet let drive at the bull-elephant from above, hitting him fair on the front. You heard the rifle-bullet hit slap against it as if on an anvil: the she-elephant made off at a fast trot, but the big brute himself turned round on the moment, lifting his trunk straight aloft with a sharp trumpeting scream through it, and looked round till his small red eye lighted on the Judge, who seemed quite out of breath from his sport.

"The fire! that fire, for God's sake, Mr Westwood, else I am lost!" called out Sir Charles, in a calm distinct key from where he stood with his eye fixed on the elephant, and could see me, too,

a moment or two before the huge round-backed lump of a brute came running round into the track, stumbling heavily up the dead branches of the fallen trees and the dry guineagrass, with a savage roar between his two white tusks-and I saw what the Judge meant, just in time to throw over the whole heap of flaming cocoatree husk among the withered grass and stuff a few yards before the monster, as dry as tinder, while the light air coming down the gully of the mountain, drove it spreading across his course up through the twigs, and sweeping in one sudden gust of fire up to the very end of his trunk. I saw it lift over the smoke