Part 2 (1/2)
The Start -- The rising Tide -- Elms and different Plants -- The Jacaantic Eucalypti -- The Reason they are called ”Fever Trees” -- Troops of Monkeys -- A Waterfall -- The Night Encampment
The next day, the 30th of October, all was ready for the proposed exploring expedition, which recent events had rendered so necessary In fact, things had so coer needed help for themselves, but were even able to carry it to others
It was therefore agreed that they should ascend the Mercy as far as the river was navigable A great part of the distance would thus be traversed without fatigue, and the explorers could transport their provisions and arms to an advanced point in the west of the island
It was necessary to think not only of the things which they should take with the back to Granite House If there had been a wreck on the coast, as was supposed, there would be s cast up, which would be lawfully their prizes In the event of this, the cart would have been of ht canoe, but it was heavy and clu, and therefore ret that the chest had not contained, besides ”his half-pound of tobacco,” a pair of strong New Jersey horses, which would have been very useful to the colony!
The provisions, which Neb had already packed up, consisted of a store of h to sustain thened for the expedition They hoped besides to supply theet the portable stove
The only tools the settlers took were the toodh the thick forests, as also the instruments, the telescope and pocket-couns, which were likely to be -pieces, the first only requiring flints which could be easily replaced, and the latter needing ful caps, a frequent use of which would soon exhaust their limited stock However, they took also one of the carbines and soes As to the powder, of which there was about fifty pounds in the barrel, a sineer hoped to manufacture an explosive substance which would allow them to husband it To the firearms were added the five cutlasses well sheathed in leather, and, thus supplied, the settlers could venture into the vast forest with some chance of success
It is useless to add that Pencroft, Herbert, and Neb, thus arh Cyrus Harding made them promise not to fire a shot unless it was necessary
At six in thethe canoe put off fro Top, and they proceeded to the un to come up half an hour before For several hours, therefore, there would be a current, which it ell to profit by, for later the ebb would make it difficult to ascend the river The tide was already strong, for in three days the h to keep the boat in the centre of the current, where it floated swiftly along between the high banks without its being necessary to increase its speed by the aid of the oars In a few le formed by the Mercy, and exactly at the place where, seven months before, Pencroft had le the river widened and flowed under the shade of great evergreen firs
The aspect of the banks wasand his companions could not but admire the lovely effects so easily produced by nature ater and trees As they advanced the forest elenificent specimens of the ulmaceae tribe, the precious elm, so valuable to builders, and which withstands well the action of water Then there were nust others one in particular, the fruit of which produces a very useful oil Further on, Herbert re shrub which, when bruised in water, furnishes excellent cordage; and two or three ebony trees of a beautiful black, crossed with capricious veins
Fro was easy, the canoe was stopped, when Gideon Spilett, Herbert, and Pencroft, their guns in their hands, and preceded by Top, jua naturalist was delighted with discovering a sort of wild spinage, belonging to the order of chenopodiaceae, and nue tribe, which it would certainly be possible to cultivate by transplanting There were cresses, horse-radish, turnips, and lastly, little branching hairy stalks, scarcely rains
”Do you knohat this plant is?” asked Herbert of the sailor
”Tobacco!” cried Pencroft, who evidently had never seen his favourite plant except in the bowl of his pipe
”No, Pencroft,” replied Herbert; ”this is not tobacco, it is ed!” returned the sailor; ”but if by chance you happen to come across a tobacco-plant, my boy, pray don't scorn that!”
”We shall find it some day!” said Gideon Spilett
”Well!” exclaimed Pencroft, ”when that day co in our island!”
These different plants, which had been carefully rooted, up, were carried to the canoe, where Cyrus Harding had reht
The reporter, Herbert, and Pencroft in this ht bank, sometimes on the left bank of the Mercy
The latter was less abrupt, but the for his pocket compass that the direction of the river from the first turn was obviously south-west and north-east, and nearly straight for a length of about three ed beyond that point, and that the Mercy continued to the north-west, towards the spurs of Mount Franklin, a one of these excursions, Gideon Spilett allinaceae They were birds with long, thin beaks, lengthened necks, short wings, and without any appearance of a tail Herbert rightly gave them the name of tinamons, and it was resolved that they should be the first tenants of their future poultry yard
But till then the guns had not spoken, and the first report which awoke the echoes of the forest of the Far West was provoked by the appearance of a beautiful bird, resenise hiun went off by itself
”What do you recognise?” asked the reporter
”The bird which escaped us on our first excursion, and froave the name to that part of the forest”
”A jacamar!” cried Herbert
It was indeed a jacae shi+nes with a round, and Top carried it to the canoe At the saht down The lory is of the size of a pigeon, the plus cri boy belonged the honour of this shot, and he was proud enough of it Lories are better food than the jacah, but it was difficult to persuade Pencroft that he had not killed the king of eatable birds It was ten o'clock in the le of the Mercy, nearly five miles from its mouth Here a halt was made for breakfast under the shade of some splendid trees The river still measured from sixty to seventy feet in breadth, and its bed froineer had observed that it was increased by nu si Jacamar Wood, as well as the forests of the Far West, it extended as far as the eye could reach In no place, either in the depths of the forest or under the trees on the banks of the Mercy, was the presence of man revealed The explorers could not discover one suspicious trace It was evident that the woodman's axe had never touched these trees, that the pioneer's knife had never severed the creepers hanging froled brushwood and long grass If castaways had landed on the island, they could not have yet quitted the shore and it was not in the woods that the survivors of the supposed shi+pwreck should be sought
[Illustration: IS IT TOBACCO?]
The engineer therefore manifested some impatience to reach the western coast of Lincoln Island, which was at least five e was continued, and as the Mercy appeared to flow not towards the shore, but rather towards Mount Franklin, it was decided that they should use the boat as long as there was enough water under its keel to float it It was both fatigue spared and tied to cut a path through the thick ith their axes But soon the flow co down, and it was about the hour, or it could no longer be felt at this distance from the mouth of the Mercy They had therefore to make use of the oars, Herbert and Neb each took one, and Pencroft took the scull The forest soon becarew further apart and often quite isolated But the further they were fro, as they did, by the free, pure air which circulated around them
What splendid specimens of the Flora of this latitude! Certainly their presence would have been enough for a botanist to name without hesitation the parallel which traversed Lincoln Island
”Eucalypti!” cried Herbert
They were, in fact, those splendid trees, the giants of the extra-tropical zone, the congeners of the Australian and New Zealand eucalyptus, both situated under the saht of two hundred feet Their trunks at the base measured twenty feet in circumference, and their bark was covered by a network of furrows containing a red, sweet-sular than those enormous specimens of the order of the myrtaceae, with their leaves placed vertically and not horizontally, so that an edge and not a surface looks upwards, the effect being that the sun's rays penetratethe trees
[Illustration: THE HALT FOR BREAKFAST]
The ground at the foot of the eucalypti was carpeted with grass, and frolittered in the sunlight like winged rubies
”These are soood for anything?”
”Pooh!” replied Pencroft ”Of course there are vegetable giants as well as huood, except to show themselves at fairs!”
”I think that you are mistaken, Pencroft,” replied Gideon Spilett, ”and that the wood of the eucalyptus has begun to be very advantageously e”
”And I s to a fauava-tree, frouava jelly is ranate-tree, which bears poeacia Cauliflora, the fruit of which is used in ui myrtle, which contains an excellent alcoholic liquor; the Caryophyllus enia Pimenta, from whence comes Jamaica pepper; the common myrtle, from whose buds and berries spice is sometimes made; the Eucalyptus manifera, which yields a sweet sort of manna; the Guinea Eucalyptus, the sap of which is transformed into beer by feru to this faenera and thirteen hundred species!”
The lad was allowed to run on, and he delivered his little botanical lecture with great ani, and Pencroft with an indescribable feeling of pride
”Very good, Herbert,” replied Pencroft, ”but I could swear that all those useful speciiants like these!”
”That is true, Pencroft”
”That supports what I said,” returned the sailor, ”na!”
”There you are wrong, Pencroft,” said the engineer; ”these gigantic eucalypti, which shelter us, are good for so”
”And what is that?”
”To render the countries which they inhabit healthy Do you knohat they are called in Australia and New Zealand?”