“Why, they look like sore fingers done up in stalls,” he said. “I say, I don’t like the look of them.”
“Don’t have any, then,” I said, commencing another; while every one present, the doctor included, followed my example with so much vigour that Jack began in a slow solemn way, peeling and tasting, and making a strange grimace, and ending by eating so rapidly that the doctor advised a halt.
“Oh, all right!” said Jack. “I won’t eat any more, then. But, I say, they are good!”
There was no likelihood of our starving, for water was abundant, and fruit to be found by those who had such energetic hunters as the blacks. So we proceeded steadily on, hoping day by day either to encounter some friendly tribe, or else to make some discovery that might be of value to us in our search.
And so for days we journeyed on, hopeful in the morning, dispirited in the heat of the day when weary. Objects such as would have made glad the heart of any naturalist were there in plenty, but nothing in the shape of sign that would make our adventure bear the fruit we wished. If our object had been hunting and shooting, wild pig, deer, and birds innumerable were on every hand. Had we been seeking wonderful orchids and strangely shaped flowers and fruits there was reward incessant for us, but it seemed as if the whole of the interior was given up to wild nature, and that the natives almost exclusively kept to the land near the sea-shore.
The doctor and I sat one night by our watch-fire talking the matter over, and I said that I began to be doubtful of success.
“Because we have been all over the country?” he replied, smiling.
“Well, we have travelled a great way,” I said.
“Why, my dear boy, what we have done is a mere nothing. This island is next in size to Australia. It is almost a continent, and we have just penetrated a little way.”
“But I can’t help seeing,” I said, “that the people seem to be all dwellers near the sea-coast.”