But their journey was not without a spice of real danger and at times of discomfort. The discomfort we may dismiss at once. It was borne, as Beeboo would say, with Christian "forty-tood", and was due partly to the clouds of mosquitoes they encountered wherever the soil was damp and marshy, and partly to the attacks of tiny, almost invisible, insects of the jigger species that came from the grass and ferns and heaths to attack their legs.
Burly Bill was an old forester, and carried with him an infallible remedy for mosquito and jigger bites, which acted like a charm.
In the higher ground--where tropical heath and heather painted the surface with hues of crimson, pink, and purple--snakes wriggled and darted about everywhere.
One cannot help wondering why Nature has taken the pains to paint many of the most deadly of these in colours that rival the hues of the humming-birds that yonder flit from bush to bush, from flower to flower.
Perhaps it is that they may the more easily seek their prey, their gaudy coats matching well with the shrubs and blossoms that they wriggle amongst, while gliding on and up to seize helpless birds in their nests or to devour the eggs.
Parrots here, and birds of that ilk, have an easy way of repelling such invaders, for as soon as they see them they utter a scream that paralyses the intruders, and causes them to fall helplessly to the ground.
To all creatures Nature grants protection, and clothes them in a manner that shall enable them to gain a subsistence; but, moreover, every creature in the world has received from the same great power the means of defending or protecting itself against the attacks of enemies.
On both sides, then, is Nature just, for though she does her best to keep living species extant until evolved into higher forms of life, she permits each species to prey on the overgrowth or overplus of others that it may live.
Knocking over a heap of soft dry mould with the butt end of his rifle, Dick started back in terror to see crawl out from the heap a score or more of the most gigantic beetles anyone could imagine. These were mostly black, or of a beautiful bronze, with streaks of metallic blue and crimson.
They are called harlequins, and live on carrion. Nothing that dies comes wrong to these monsters, and a few of them will seize and carry away a dead snake five or six hundred times their own weight. My readers will see by this that it is not so much muscle that is needed for feats of strength as indomitable will and nerve force. But health must be at the bottom of all. Were a man, comparatively speaking, as strong as one of these beetles, he could lift on his back and walk off with a weight of thirty tons!