Jules Verne For Children: 16 Incredible Tales of Mystery, Courage & Adventure (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
the “collophora utilis,” the “cameraria letifolia,” and above all, the “syphonia elastica,” which belong to different families, abound in the provinces of South America. And meanwhile, a rather singular thing, there was not a single one to be seen.
Now, Dick Sand had particularly promised his friend Jack to show him some caoutchouc trees. So a great deception for the little boy, who figured to himself that gourds, speaking babies, articulate punchinellos, and elastic balloons grew quite naturally on those trees. He complained.
“Patience, my good little man,” replied Harris. “We shall find some of those caoutchoucs, and by hundreds, in the neighborhood of the farm.”
“Handsome ones, very elastic?” asked little Jack.
“The most elastic there are. Hold! while waiting, do you want a good fruit to take away your thirst?” And, while speaking, Harris went to gather from a tree some fruits, which seemed to be as pleasant to the taste as those from the peach-tree.
“Are you very sure, Mr. Harris,” asked Mrs. Weldon, “that this fruit can do no harm?”
“Mrs. Weldon, I am going to convince you,” replied the American, who took a large mouthful of one of those fruits. “It is a mango.”
And little Jack, without any more pressing, followed Harris’s example, He declared that it was very good, “those pears,” and the tree was at once put under contribution.
Those mangos belonged to a species whose fruit is ripe in March and April, others being so only in September, and, consequently, their mangos were just in time.
“Yes, it is good, good, good!” said little Jack, with his mouth full. “But my friend Dick has promised me caoutchoucs, if I was very good, and I want caoutchoucs!”
“You will have them, Jack,” replied Mrs. Weldon, “because Mr. Harris assures you of it.”
“But that is not all,” went on Jack. “My friend Dick has promised me some other thing!”
“What then, has friend Dick promised?” asked Harris, smiling.
“Some humming-birds, sir.”
“And you shall have some humming-birds, my good little man, but farther on—farther on,” replied Harris.
The fact is that little Jack had a right to claim some of these charming creatures, for he was now in a country where they should abound. The Indians, who know how to weave their feathers artistically, have lavished the most poetical names on those jewels of the flying race. They call them either the “rays” or the “hairs of the sun.” Here, it is “the little king of the flowers;” there, “the celestial flower that comes in its flight to caress the terrestrial flower.” It is again “the bouquet of jewels, which sparkles in the fire of the day.” It can be believed that their imagination would know how to furnish a new poetical appellation for each of the one hundred and fifty species which constitute this marvelous tribe of humming-birds.
Meanwhile, however numerous these humming-birds might be in the forests of Bolivia, little Jack was obliged to still content himself with Harris’s promise. According to the American, they were still too close to the coast, and the humming-birds did not like these deserts so near the ocean. The presence of man did not frighten them at the “hacienda;” they heard nothing all day but their cry of “teretere” and the murmur of their wings, similar to that of a spinning-wheel.
“Ah! how I should like to be there!” cried little Jack.
The surest method of getting there—to the “hacienda” of San Felice—was not to stop on the road. Mrs. Weldon and her companions only took the time absolutely necessary for repose.
The aspect of the forest already changed. Between the less crowded trees large clearings opened here and there. The sun, piercing the green carpet, then showed its structure of red, syenite granite, similar to slabs of lapis-lazuli. On some heights the sarsaparilla abounded, a plant with fleshy tubercles, which formed an inextricable tangle. The forest, with the narrow paths, was better for them.
Before sunset the little troop were about eight miles from the point of departure. This journey had been made without accident, and even without great fatigue. It is true, it was the first journey on the march, and no doubt the following halting places would be rougher.
By a common consent they decided to make a halt at this place. The question then was, not to establish a real camp, but to simply organize a resting-place. One man on guard, relieved every two hours, would suffice to watch during the night, neither the natives nor the deer being truly formidable.
They found nothing better for shelter than an enormous mango-tree, whose large branches, very bushy, formed a kind of natural veranda. If necessary, they could nestle in the branches.
Only, on the arrival of the little troop, a deafening concert arose from the top of the tree.
The mango served as a perch for a colony of gray parrots, prattling, quarrelsome, ferocious birds, which set upon living birds, and those who would judge them from their congeners which Europe keeps in cages, would be singularly mistaken.
These parrots jabbered with such a noise that Dick Sand thought of firing at them to oblige them to be silent, or to put them to flight. But Harris dissuaded him, under the pretext that in these solitudes it was better not to disclose his presence by the detonation of a fire-arm.
“Let us pass along without noise,” he said, “and we shall pass along without danger.”
Supper was prepared at once, without any need of proceeding to cook food. It was composed of conserves and biscuit. A little rill, which wound under the plants, furnished drinkable water, which they did not drink without improving it with a few drops of rum. As to dessert, the mango was there with its juicy fruit, which the parrots did not allow to be picked without protesting with their abominable cries.
At the end of the supper it began to be dark. The shade rose slowly from the ground to the tops of the trees, from which the foliage soon stood out like a fine tracery on the more luminous background of the sky. The first stars seemed to be shining flowers, which twinkled at the end of the last branches. The wind went down with the night, and no longer trembled in the branches of the trees. The parrots themselves had become mute. Nature was going to rest, and inviting every living being to follow her in this deep sleep.
Preparations for retiring had to be of a very primitive character.
“Shall we not light a large fire for the night?” Dick Sand asked the American.
“What’s the good?” replied Harris. “Fortunately the nights are not cold, and this enormous mango will preserve the soil from all evaporation. We have neither cold nor dampness to fear. I repeat, my young friend, what I told you just now. Let us move along incognito. No more fire than gunshots, if possible.”
“I believe, indeed,” then said Mrs. Weldon, “that we have nothing to fear from the Indians—even from those wanderers of the woods, of whom you have spoken, Mr. Harris. But, are there not other four-footed wanderers, that the sight of a fire would help to keep at a distance?”
“Mrs. Weldon,” replied the American, “you do too much honor to the deer of this country. Indeed, they fear man more than he fears them.”
“We are in a wood,” said Jack, “and there is always beasts in the woods.”
“There are woods and woods, my good little man, as there are beasts and beasts,” replied Harris, laughing. “Imagine that you are in the middle of a large park. Truly, it is not without reason that the Indians say of this country, ‘Es como el pariso!’ It is like an earthly paradise!”
“Then there are serpents?” said Jack.
“No, my Jack,” replied