After the meal they took it easy in a number of grass hammocks stretched beneath the wide spreading palms surrounding the wayside inn, if such it might be called. Aleck and Cujo fell to smoking and telling each other stories, while the Rovers dozed away, lulled to sleep by the warm, gentle breeze which was blowing.
"I don't wonder the natives are lazy," remarked Dick, when his uncle aroused him. "I rarely slept in the daytime at home, and here I fell off without half trying."
"The climate is very enervating, Dick. That is why this section of the globe makes little or no progress toward civilization. Energetic men come here, with the best intention in the world of hustling, as it is termed, but soon their ambition oozes out of them like—well, like molasses out of a barrel lying on a hot dock in the sun.
"A good comparison," laughed Dick.
"Come, Tom; come, Sam!" he called out, and soon the party was on its way again.
The highway was still broad, but now it was not as even as before, and here and there they had to leap over just such a treacherous swamp as had caused Sam so much trouble. "It's a good thing we didn't bring the horses," said Mr. Rover. "I didn't think so before, but I do now."
The jungle was filled with countless birds, of all sorts, sizes, and colors. Some of these sang in a fairly tuneful fashion, but the majority uttered only sounds which were as painful to the hearing as they were tiresome.
"The sound is enough to drive a nervous fellow crazy," declared Tom. "It's a good thing nature fixed it so that a man can't grow up nervous here."
"Perhaps those outrageous cries are meant to wake a chap up," suggested Dick.
"I've a good mind to shoot some of the little pests."