“Some of them are really very beautiful, and I never saw any like them. Look at that lot sailing away before us, their necks, backs, and throats a beautiful orange, while the head is glossy black. They must be splendid divers, and what a rate they go at.”
“I never saw ducks before,” replied the more scientific missionary, “possessing the power of partially submerging themselves; only the head and top of the back is above water as they paddle along. Steer the canoe in shore, there are quantities of wild duck there.”
“But not the same sort; see, the head is brown, beautifully pencilled with black,” said Hughes, as they all ceased rowing, and the boat, left to the current, glided among the broad leaves of the water-lilies, “the body and wings the same, while a deep yellow ring runs round the neck. There they go,” he continued, “spattering along the water, just like water-hens, and then diving.”
Floating slowly on, the canoe entered a little bay, where a quantity of drift wood had accumulated. “Only look, Hughes; why there are hundreds of them feeding apparently on insects found on the floating wood,” cried Wyzinski.
“Again another species, for these are of a brownish-red, intermixed with dirty white. What say you to landing in our park, taking possession, and having our dinner there?”
“Agreed; but first of all I must have that bird; I never saw one like it,” replied the missionary. Strange birds of brilliant plumage were flying about; among others, a small one, which hovered over the water like a hawk, espying its finny prey doubtless from its dizzy height; and then, apparently shutting its wings, would drop or dart into the river, like a stone, making the water splash around. A shot gun had been placed in the boat, and the missionary wounded one of these birds. For fully ten minutes the canoe chased it, the bird diving and remaining so long under water that it was almost impossible to tell where it would rise, and eventually it got away.
The day was hot, although a cool breeze was blowing on the river, bending down the long reeds on the banks, as heated with their long chase, and laughing at their failure, the boat was forced through the drift wood into the little bay, and eventually made fast by a rope to the trunk of a tree.
“Here, Noti, help me to haul out the carcass of the water-buck, and we’ll make a fire under yonder clump,” shouted Hughes as he leaped ashore.
The fire was soon blazing merrily, and great collops of venison roasting before it. The monkeys came grinning and chattering among the branches, looking at the intruders, and occasionally pelting pieces of bark at them; strange birds of bright plumage circled round them, and whole flocks of ducks went winding about among the leaves of the water-lilies before their eyes.
Seated under the shade of a splendid tree, the bright knives were soon at work, and a hearty meal made, washed down by clear cool water from the springs of Gorongoza.