Part 24 (1/2)
ADVENTURES AMID THE WILDS OF THE AMAZON
CHAPTER I
THE BIGGEST WOOD IN THE WORLD
Boy Reader, I am told that you are not tired of my company Is this true?
”Quite true, dear Captain,--quite true!”
That is your reply You speak sincerely? I believe you do
In return, believe _me_, when I tell you I aive is, that I have come once more to seek you I have co party, nor to a ball, nor to the Grand Opera, nor to the Crystal Palace, nor yet to the Zoological Gardens of Regent's Park,--no, but to the great zoological garden of Nature I have con,”--another ”grand journey” through the fields of Science and Adventure Will you go?
”Most willingly--with you, dear Captain, anywhere”
Coain we cross the blue and billowy Atlantic; again we seek the shores of the noble continent of Aain?”
Ha! that is a large continent, and you need not fear that I around No, fear not that! New scenes, await us; a new _fauna_, a new _flora_,--I ht almost say, a new earth and a new sky!
You shall have variety, I promise you,--a perfect contrast to the scenes of our last journey
Then, you remember, we turned our faces to the cold and icy North,--now our path lies through the hot and sunny South Then we lived in a log-hut, and closed every cranny to keep out the cold,--now, in our cottage of pallad to let the breeze play through the open walls Then rapped our bodies in thick furs,--noe shall be content with the lightest garments Then ere bitten by the frost--noe shall be bitten by the sand-flies, and mosquitoes, and bats, and snakes, and scorpions, and spiders, and stung by wasps, and centipedes, and great red ants! Trust e!
Perhaps you do not contes of pleasure Come! do not be alarmed at the snakes, and scorpions, and centipedes! We shall find a cure for every bite--an antidote for every bane
Our new journey shall have its pleasures and advantages Remember how of old we shi+vered as we slept, coiled up in the corner of our dark log-hut and shtly in our netted haossae of the ferns Then we gazed upon leaden skies, and at night looked upon the cold constellation of the Northern Bear;--noe shall have over us an azure canopy, and shall nightly behold the sparkling glories of the Southern Cross, still shi+ning as bright as when Paul and his little Virginia with loving eyes gazed upon it from their island home In our last journey we toiled over bleak and barren wastes, across frozen lakes, and marshes, and rivers;--noe shall pass under the shadows of virgin forests, and float lightly upon the bosom of broad majestic strea nature
Hitherto our travels have been upon the wide, open prairie, the trackless plain of sand, the frozen lake, the thin scattering woods of the North, or the treeless snow-clad ”Barrens” Noe are about to enter a great forest,--a forest where the leaves never fade, where the flowers are always in bloom,--a forest where the woodman's axe has not yet echoed, where the colonist has hardly hewed out a single clearing,--a vast prie, do you ask? I can hardly tell you Are you thinking of Epping or the New Forest? True, these are large woods, and have been larger at one tireat forest fro announce to take you is _as big as all Europe_! There is one place where a straight line ht be drawn across this forest that would th of two thousand six hundred ht be described, with a diameter of more than a thousand miles, and the whole area included within the vast circumference would be found covered with an unbroken forest!
I need scarce tell you what forest I allude to, for there is none other in the world of such dimensions--none to compare with that vast, trackless forest that covers the valley of thethrough this tree-covered expanse?
Many a strange foriant ”ceiba” tree, and the ”zae parasites alh they elobe-shaped fruits as large as the human head; the ”cow-tree,” with its abundant fountains of rich um--the caoutchouc of co bark; the curious ”volador,” with its winged seeds; the wild indigo, and the arnatto We shall see palms of many species--some with trunks smooth and cylindrical, others covered with thorns, sharp and thickly set--some with broad entire leaves, others with fronds pinnate and feathery, and still others whose leaves are the shape of a fan--soht of an hundred and fifty feet, while others scarcely attain to the standard of an ordinary man
On the water we shall see beautiful lilies--the snohite _nymphs_, and the yellow _nuphars_ We shall see the _Victoria regia_ covering the pool with its e circular leaves of bronze green We shall see tall flags like Saracen spears, and the dark green culolden _arundinaria_--the baht
Many a for in the sun, we uar--a beautiful but dreaded sight Breaking through the thick underwood, or elimpse of the sombre tapir, or the red-brown capivara We h the deep shade, or the ed prey
Weat the cones of sand-clay, and licking up the white ter over the sun-parched earth, and rolling itself up at the approach of danger Wethe high branches, and leaping fro; we reat howlingprehensive tails, down to the little saier than squirrels
What beautiful birds, too!--for this forest is their favourite hourns, and the ”gallo,” with his pluht red Upon the trees, the ons In the waters, the scarlet flaoes, the ibises, and the tall herons; and in the air, the hawks, the zales