Chapter Thirty Six.
Ebo satisfies our Wants.
It would be tedious if I were to go on describing the almost endless varieties of birds we shot, glowing though they were with rainbow colours, and to keep repeating how we skinned and preserved this sun-bird, that pitta, or trogon, or lovely rose-tinted dove. Parrots and cockatoos we found without number, and as we selected only the finest specimens, our collection rapidly increased, so fast, indeed, by steady work, that I began to understand how my uncle had brought so great a number from the West.
But still one of the great objects of our visit to this part of the world had not been achieved; we had shot no birds of paradise; and these were scarce things in England at the time of which I write.
There were plenty of rough specimens of their plumage worn in ladies’ bonnets; but a fair, well-preserved skin was hardly known, those brought to England being roughly dried by the natives; so at last my uncle declared that no more birds should be shot and skinned until we had obtained specimens of some at least of the lovely creatures whose cries we often heard about us, but which tantalisingly kept out of shot.
It was a difficult task, but we at last made Ebo understand that we must shoot some of these birds, when by his way he seemed to indicate that if we had only told him sooner we might have had as many as we liked.
That very day he obtained a good little store of provisions, shouldered his spear, and went off by himself, and we saw no more of him for forty-eight hours, when he came back in the most unconcerned way, just as if he had never been out of sight, and sat down and ate all that we put before him.
After that he lay down and went to sleep for some hours, waking up ready to dance around us, chattering vehemently until we had finished the skins we were preserving, when he signed to us to take our guns and to follow him.