“True, O king!” said Ben; “the bigwigs in London think they know what turtle tastes like, but they’re mistaken; there is as much difference between the flavour of a turtle newly caught, and one that has been starved to death as your London turtles are, as there is between a bit of cork and a well-boiled cauliflower.”
“Bravo! Ben, you speak the truth.”
“Then we visited romantic Saint Helena. It used to be called ‘a rock in the middle of the ocean.’ How different now! A more fertile and luxuriant place there isn’t in all the wide, wide world. We called at Ascension next; well, that is a rock if you like, not a green thing except at the top o’ the hill (it has since been cultivated). But the birds’ eggs, Nie, and the turtle. It makes me hungry to think of them even now.
“We had whole months of sport at the Cape and in South Africa, and all up the coast as far as Zambesi. We visited Madagascar; more sport there, and a bit of honest fighting; then on to the Comoro islands—more romantic scenery, and more fighting; then to Zanzibar. Captured prizes, took soundings, dredged, and went on again. On, to Seychelles, then to Java, Sumatra, Penang, then back to India, and thence to Africa, the Red Sea, Mocha; why, it would be easier far to mention the places we did not visit. But the best of it was that we stayed for months at every new place where we cast anchor.”
“Visited Ceylon, I dare say?”
“Yes, hid, and had some rare sport elephant-shooting. I tell you what, Nie, there was some clanger attached to that sort of thing in those days, but now it is little better than shooting cows, unless you get away into the little-known regions of equatorial Africa; there you still find the elephant has his foot—and a big one it is—upon his native soil. But I remember once—I and my man Friday—being charged by two gigantic tuskers, and the whole herd rushing wildly down to their assistance. It was a supreme moment, Nie. I thought my time was come; I would have given anything and everything I possessed to get up into the top of the palm-tree close beside me.
“‘Now, Friday,’ I cried, ‘be steady if you value your own life and mine.’