We managed to learn from him, too, that we should not escape from the gorge that night, and to our dismay we had to encamp on a broad shelf when the sun went down; but the night proved to be clear and calm, and morning broke without any adventure to disturb our much-needed rest.
The gorge had been widening out, though, a great deal on the previous evening, and by noon next day, when we paused for a rest after a long tramp over constantly-rising ground, we were beyond risk from any such storm as that which had nearly been our destruction, but as we rested amid some bushes beside what was a mere gurgling stream, one of several into which the river had branched, Ti-hi contrived to make us understand that we were not in safety, for there were people here who were ready to fight and kill, according to his words and pantomimic action, which Jimmy took upon himself to explain.
For days and days we journeyed on finding abundance of food in the river and on its banks by means of gun and hook and line. The blacks were clever, too, at finding for us roots and fruit, with tender shoots of some kind of grassy plant that had a sweet taste, pleasantly acid as well, bunches of which Jimmy loved to stick behind him in his waistband so that it hung down like a bushy green tail that diminished as he walked, for he kept drawing upon it till it all was gone.
Now and then, too, we came upon the great pale-green broad leaves of a banana or plantain, which was a perfect treasure.
Jimmy was generally the first to find these, for he was possessed of a fine insight into what was good for food.
“Regular fellow for the pot,” Jack Penny said one day as Jimmy set up one of his loud whoops and started off at a run.
This was the first time we found a plantain, and in answer to Jimmy’s cooey we followed and found him hauling himself up by the large leaf-stalks, to where, thirty feet above the bottom, hung, like a brobdignagian bunch of elongated grapes, a monstrous cluster of yellow plantains.
“I say, they ain’t good to eat, are they?” said Jack, as Jimmy began hacking through the curved stalk.
“Yup, yup! hyi, hyi!” shouted Jimmy, tearing away so vigorously at the great bunch that it did not occur to him that he was proceeding in a manner generally accredited to the Irishman who sawed off a branch, cutting between himself and the tree.
The first knowledge he, and for the matter of fact we, had of his mistake, was seeing him and the bunch of bananas, weighing about a hundredweight, come crashing down amongst the undergrowth, out of a tangle of which, and the huge leaves of the plantain tree, we had to help our black companion, whose first motion was to save the fruit.