Afloat in the Forest

Chapter Fifty Four. A Milk Supper

It was some time before they swam under the massaranduba’s wide-spreading branches, as it did not stand on the edge of the forest, and for a short time after entering among the other trees it was out of sight. The instincts of the Indian, however, directed him, and in due time it again came before their eyes, its rough reddish trunk rising out of the water like a vast ragged column.

As might have been expected, its huge limbs were laden with parasites, trailing down to the surface of the water. By these they found no difficulty in making an ascent, and were soon safely installed; its huge coreaceous leaves of oblong form and pointed at the tops, many of them nearly a foot in length, forming a shade against the fervent rays of the sun, still several degrees above the horizon.

As the Indian had anticipated, the tree was in full bearing, and ere long a number of its apples were plucked, and refreshing the parched palates that would have pronounced them exquisite had they been even less delicious than they were. Munday made no stay even to taste the fruit. He was determined on giving his companions the still rarer treat he had promised them, a supper of milk; and not until he had made some half-dozen notches with his knife, and placed under each a sapucaya-shell detached from the swimming-belts, did he cease his exertions.

They had not long to wait. The vegetable cow proved a free milker, and in twenty minutes each of the party had a pericarp in hand full of delicious cream, which needed no sugar to make it palatable. They did not stay to inquire how many quarts their new cow could give. Enough for them to know that there was sufficient to satisfy the appetites of all for that night.

When, after supper, the conversation naturally turned to the peculiarities of this remarkable tree, many other facts were elicited in regard to its useful qualities. Richard told them that in Pará it was well-known, its fruit and milk being sold in the streets by the negro market-women, and much relished by all classes of the inhabitants of that city; that its sap was used by the Paraense joiners in the place of glue, to which it was equal, if not superior, guitars, violins, and broken dishes being put together with it in the most effective manner, its tenacity holding against both heat and dampness. Another curious fact was, that the sap continues to run long after the tree has been felled: that even the logs lying in the yard of a saw-mill have been known to yield for weeks, even months, the supply required by the sawyers for creaming their coffee!

And now our adventurers, admonished by the setting of the sun, were about stretching themselves along the branches, with the intention of going to sleep. But they were not to retire without an incident, though fortunately it was such as to add to the cheerfulness lately inspiring the spirits of all, even to the macaw and little monkey, both of whom had amply regaled themselves upon the succulent fruits of the massaranduba. The great ape, again left behind, had been altogether forgotten. No one of the party was thinking of it; or, if any one was, it was only with a very subdued regret. All knew that the coaita could take care of itself, and under all circumstances it would be safe enough. For all this, they would have been very glad still to have kept it in their company, had that been possible; and all of them were glad when a loud chattering at no great distance was recognised as the salutation of their old acquaintance, the coaita. Directly after, the animal itself was seen springing from tree to tree, until by a last long leap it lodged itself on the branches of the massaranduba, and was soon after seated upon the shoulders of Tipperary Tom.

While the swimmers were proceeding by slow stages, the ape had kept them company among the tops of the adjacent trees; and, but for its being delayed by having to make the circuit around the various little bays, it might have been astride the vegetable cow long before the swimmers themselves. Coming late, it was not the less welcome, and before going to sleep it was furnished with a fruit supper, and received a series of caresses from Tom, that in some measure consoled it for his double desertion.

Chapter Fifty Five. Only a Dead-Wood

Despite the coarse netting of the hammocks on which they were constrained to pass the night, our adventurers slept better than was their wont, from a certain feeling of security, – a confidence that God had not forgotten them. He who could give them food in the forest could also guide them out of the labyrinth into which their own negligence had led them.

A prayer to Him preceded their breakfast on the cream of the cow-tree, and with another they launched themselves upon their strings of shells, with renewed confidence, and proceeded along the curving selvage of the trees. As before, they found their progress impeded by the “ovens” of the piosoca; and despite their utmost exertions, at noon they had made scarce three miles from their starting-point, for the gigantic tree that had sheltered them was full in sight, and even at sunset they could not have been more than six miles from it.

In the forest about them there appeared no resting-place for the night. The trees stood closely together, but without any interlacing of branches, or large horizontal limbs upon which they might seek repose. For a time it appeared as if they would have to spend the night upon the water. This was a grave consideration, and the guide knew it. With their bodies immersed during the midnight hours, – chill even within the tropics, – the consequences might be serious, perhaps fatal. One way or another a lodgement must be obtained among the tree-tops. It was obtained, but after much difficulty. The climbing to it was a severe struggle, and the seat was of the most uncomfortable kind. There was no supper, or comfort of any kind.

With the earliest appearance of day they were all once more in the water, and slowly pursuing their weary way. Now slower than ever, for in proportion to their constantly decreasing strength the obstruction from the piosocas appeared to increase. The lagoon, or at least its border, had become a labyrinth of lilies.

While thus contending against adverse circumstances, an object came under their eyes that caused a temporary abstraction from their misery. Something strange was lying along the water at the distance of about a quarter of a mile from them. It appeared to be some ten or twelve yards in length, and stood quite high above the surface. It was of a dark brown colour, and presented something the appearance of a bank of dried mud, with some pieces of stout stakes projecting upward. Could it be this? Was it a bank or spit of land?

The hearts of the swimmers leaped as this thought, inspired by their wishes, came into every mind. If land, it could be only an islet, for there was water all around it, – that they could perceive. But if so, an islet, if no bigger than a barn-door, would still be land, and therefore welcome. They might stretch their limbs upon it, and obtain a good night’s rest, which they had not done since the wreck of the galatea. Besides an islet ever so small – if only a sand-bar or bank of mud – would be a sort of evidence that the real dry land was not far off.

The dark form at first sight appeared to be close in to the trees, but Munday, standing up in the water, pronounced it to be at some distance from them, – between fifty and a hundred yards. As it was evident that the trees themselves were up to their necks in water, it could hardly be an island. Still there might be some elevated spot, a ridge or mound, that overtopped the inundation. Buoyed up by this hope, the swimmers kept on towards it, every eye scanning intently its outlines in order to make out its real character. All at once the projections which they had taken for stakes disappeared from the supposed spot of mud. They had assumed the shape of large wading birds of dark plumage, which, having spread their long, triangular wings, were now hovering above the heads of the swimmers, by their cries proclaiming that they were more astonished at the latter than they could possibly be at them.

It was not until they had arrived within a hundred yards of the object that its true character was declared. “Pa Terra!” Munday cried, in a sonorous and somewhat sorrowful voice, as he sank despairingly upon his breast; – “no island, – no bank, – no land of any kind. Only a dead-wood!”

“A dead-wood!” repeated the patron, not comprehending what he meant, and fancying from the chagrined air of the Indian that there might be mischief in the thing.

“That’s all, master. The carcass of an old Manguba, that’s been long since stripped of his limbs, and has been carried here upon the current of the Gapo; don’t you see his huge shoulders rising above the water?”

Richard proceeded to explain the Indian’s meaning. “The trunk of a dead tree, uncle. It’s the silk-cotton-tree, or manguba, as Munday calls it. I can tell that by its floating so lightly on the water. It appears to be anchored, though; or perhaps it is moored among the stalks of the piosocas.”

The explanation was interrupted by a shout from the Indian, whose countenance had all at once assumed an expression of cheerfulness, – almost joy. The others, as they turned their eyes upon him, were surprised at the sudden change, for but a moment before they had noticed his despairing look.

“The Mundurucú must be mad, patron,” he shouted. “Where is his head? Gone down to the bottom of the Gapo along with the galatea!”

“What’s the matter?” inquired Tom, brightening up as he beheld the joyful aspect of the Indian. “Is it dhroy land that he sees? I hope it’s that same.”

“What is it, Munday?” asked Trevannion. “Why do you fancy yourself insane?”

“Only to think of it, patron, that I should have been sorry to find but the trunk of a tree. The trunk of a tree, – a grand manguba, big enough to make a montaria, an igarité, – a galatea, if you like, – a great canoe that will carry us all! Cry Santos Dios! Give thanks to the Great Spirit! We are saved! – we are saved!”

The words of the tapuyo, wild as they might appear, were well understood. They were answered by a general shout of satisfaction, – for even the youngest of the party could comprehend that the great log lying near them might be made the means of carrying them clear of the dangers with which they had been so long encompassed.

“True, – true,” said Trevannion. “It is the very thing for which we have been searching in vain, – some sort of timber that would carry its own weight in the water, and us beside. This dead manguba, as you call it, looks as if a ton would not sink it a quarter of an inch. It will certainly serve us for a raft. Give thanks to God, children; his hand is in this. It fills me with hope that we are yet to survive the perils through which we are passing, and that I shall live to see old England once more.”

No flock of jacanas ever created such a commotion among the leaves of the Victoria lily as was made at that moment. Like frail leaves the thick stems were struck aside by the arms of the swimmers, strengthened by the prospect of a speedy delivery from what but the moment before seemed extremest peril; and almost in a moment they were alongside the great trunk of the manguba, in earnest endeavour to get upon it.

Chapter Fifty Six. The Sterculiads

In their attempts at boarding they were as successful as they could have expected. The top of the gigantic log was full six feet above the surface of the water, and there were huge buttresses upon it – the shoulders spoken of by Munday – that rose several feet higher. By dint of hard climbing, however, all were at length safely landed.

After they had spent a few minutes in recovering breath, they began to look around them and examine their strange craft. It was, as the Indian had alleged, the trunk of a silk-cotton-tree, the famed Bombax of the American tropical forests, – found, though, in many different species, from Mexico to the mountains of Brazil. It is known as belonging to the order of the Sterculiads, which includes among its genera a great number of vegetable giants, among others the baobab of Africa, with a stem ninety feet in circumference, though the trunk is out of proportion to the other parts of the tree. The singular hand-plant of Mexico called Manita is a sterculiad, as are also the cotton-tree of India and the gum-tragacanth of Sierra Leone.

The bombax-trees of Tropical America are of several distinct species. They are usually called cotton or silk-cotton-trees, on account of the woolly or cottony stuff between the seeds and the outer capsules, which resemble those of the true cotton plant (Gossypium). They are noted for their great size and imposing appearance, more than for any useful properties. Several species of them, however, are not without a certain value. Bombax ceiba, and Bombax monguba, the monguba of the Amazon, are used for canoes, a single trunk sufficing to make a craft that will carry twenty hogsheads of sugar along with its crew of tapuyos. The peculiar lightness of the wood renders it serviceable for this purpose; and there is one species, the ochroma of the West Indies, so light as to have been substituted for cork-wood in the bottling of wines.

The silk or cotton obtained from the seed-pods, though apparently of an excellent quality, unfortunately cannot be well managed by the spinning-machine. It lacks adhesiveness, and does not form a thread that may be trusted. It is, however, extensively used for the stuffing of couches, cushions, and other articles of upholstery; and the Amazonian Indians employ it in feathering the arrows of their blow-guns, and for several other purposes.

A peculiarity of the Sterculiads is their having buttresses. Some are seen with immense excrescences growing out from their trunks, in the form of thin, woody plates, covered with bark just like the trunk itself, between which are spaces that might be likened to stalls in a stable. Often these partitions rise along the stem to a height of fifty feet. The cottonwood (Populus angulata) and the deciduous cypress of the Mississippi (Taxodium distichum) partake of this singular habit; the smaller buttresses of the latter, known as “cypress knees,” furnishing the “cypress hams,” which, under their covering of lime-washed canvas, had been sold (so say the Southerners) by the Yankee speculator for the genuine haunch of the corn-fed hog!

In spite of its commercial inutility, there are few trees of the South American forest more interesting than the manguba. It is a conspicuous tree, even in the midst of a forest abounding in types of the vegetable kingdom, strange and beautiful. Upon the trunk of such a tree, long since divested of its leaves, – stripped even of its branches, its species distinguishable only to the eye of the aboriginal observer, – our adventurers found a lodgment.

Chapter Fifty Seven. Chased by Tocandeiras

Their tenancy was of short continuance. Never did lodger retreat from a shrewish landlady quicker than did Trevannion and his party from the trunk of the silk-cotton-tree. That they so hastily forsook a secure resting-place, upon which but the moment before they had been so happy to plant their feet, will appear a mystery. Strangest of all, that they were actually driven overboard by an insect not bigger than an ant!

Having gained a secure footing, as they supposed, upon the floating tree-trunk, our adventurers looked around them, the younger ones from curiosity, the others to get acquainted with the character of their new craft. Trevannion was making calculations as to its capability; not as to whether it could carry them, for that was already decided, but whether it was possible to convert it into a manageable vessel, either with sails, if such could be extemporised, or with oars, which might be easily obtained. While thus engaged, he was suddenly startled by an exclamation of surprise and alarm from the Indian. All that day he had been the victim of sudden surprises.

“The Tocandeiras! – the Tocandeiras!” he cried, his eyes sparkling as he spoke; and, calling to the rest to follow, he retreated toward one end of the tree-trunk.

With wondering eyes they looked back to discover the thing from which they were retreating. They could see nothing to cause such symptoms of terror as those exhibited by their guide and counsellor. It is true that upon the other end of the tree-trunk, in a valley-like groove between two great buttresses, the bark had suddenly assumed a singular appearance. It had turned to a fiery red hue, and had become apparently endowed with a tremulous motion. What could have occasioned this singular change in the colour of the log?

“The Tocandeiras!” again exclaimed Munday, pointing directly to the object upon which all eyes were fixed.

“Tocandeiras?” asked Trevannion. “Do you mean those little red insects crawling along the log?”

“That, and nothing else. Do you know what they are, patron?”

“I have not the slightest idea, only that they appear to be some species of ant.”

“That’s just what they are, – ants and nothing else! Those are the dreaded fire-ants. We’ve roused them out of their sleep. By our weight the manguba has gone down a little. The water has got into their nest. They are forced out, and are now spiteful as hungry jaguars. We must get beyond their reach, or in ten minutes’ time there won’t be an inch of skin on our bodies without a bite and a blister.”

“It is true, uncle,” said Richard. “Munday is not exaggerating. If these ugly creatures crawl upon us, and they will if we do not get out of the way, they’ll sting us pretty nigh to death. We must leave the log!”

And now, on the way towards the spot occupied by the party, was a fiery stream composed of spiteful-looking creatures, whose very appearance bespoke stings and poison. There was no help for it but to abandon the log, and take to the water. Fortunately each individual was still in possession of his string of sapucaya-shells; and, sliding down the side of the log, once more they found themselves among the grand gong-like leaves of the gigantic lily.

Chapter Fifty Eight. A Log that Wouldn’t Roll

It now became a question, what they were to do. Abandon the log altogether, for a swarm of contemptible insects, not larger than lady-bugs, when, by the merest chance, they had found a raft, the very thing they stood in need of? Such a course was not contemplated, – not for a moment. On gliding back into the Gapo, they had no idea of swimming away farther than would secure their safety from the sting of the insects, as Munday assured them that the fire-ants would not follow them into the water. But how regain possession of their prize?

The ants were now seen swarming all over it, here and there collected in large hosts, seemingly holding council together, while broad bands appeared moving from one to the other, like columns of troops upon the march! There was scarce a spot upon the surface of the log, big enough for a man to set his foot upon, that was not reddened by the cohorts of this insect army!

“How shall we dispossess them?” inquired Trevannion.

“Shure,” said Tipperary Tom, answering as if the appeal had been made to him, “can’t we sit thim on fire, an’ burn thim aft the log? Cudn’t we gather some dry laves out av the threes, an’ make a blaze that ’ud soon consume ivery mother’s son av thim?”

“Nonsense, Tom. We should consume the log, as well as the ants, and then what would be the advantage to us?”

“Well, thin, iv yez think fire won’t do, why can’t we thry wather? Lit us thry an’ drownd thim off the log. Munday sez they can’t swim, an’ iv they can’t, shure they must go to the bottom.”

“How would you do it?” asked Trevannion, catching at the idea suggested by the Hibernian.

“Nothing asier. Give the did three a rowl over on its back, an’ thin the ants’ll get undher the wather; an’ won’t they have to stay there? Lit us all lay howlt on the log, an’ see iv we can’t give the swate craythers a duckin’.”

Convinced that there was good sense in Tom’s counsel, swimming back towards the log, they stretched their arms upward, and commenced trying to turn it over. The attempt proved unsuccessful. Partly from the enormous weight of the dead tree, saturated as one half of it was with water, and partly owing to the great buttresses acting as outriggers, they could only turn it about one tenth part of its circumference. It rolled back upon them, at first dipping a little deeper, but afterwards settling into its old bed. They were about to discontinue their efforts when a cry came from Tom, as if some new source of terror had been discovered in the manguba. Soon each and all found an explanation in their own sensations, which were as if they had been sharply stung or bitten by some venomous insect. While shouldering the log in vain endeavours to capsize it, some scores of the ants had been detached from its sides, and fallen upon the bodies of the swimmers. Instead of showing gratitude for this temporary respite from drowning, the spiteful insects had at once imbedded their poisoned fangs in their preservers, as if conscious that they owed all their misfortunes to the intruders who had so rudely disturbed their rest. But when these stray ants that had been stinging them were disposed of, their attention was once more directed towards the manguba, with a still more determinate resolution to repossess what in their eyes was more valuable than a selected log of the finest Honduras mahogany!