CHAPTER XXI.
THE MANGROVE CREEK.
The secluded creek in which the ship lay moored had a little history of its own, that was better than the misty recollections of old Marco Polo, who, by-the-way, never visited Madagascar at all. It was in this solitary little basin, or natural dock, that the high-pooped and low-waisted caravella of the first discoverer of Madagascar, Lorenzo Almieda (son of Don Francisco Almieda, viceroy of India for Don Emmanuel of Portugal, in 1506), came to anchor, after a voyage that was long and perilous; and now, as our friends Morley and Heriot gazed on its strange and fantastic cliffs, the former thought of the Serendib of the "Arabian Nights," and the latter, who was better read, recalled the Island of the Moon, and the Cerne of Pliny, with the works of other writers, who averred that Madagascar was an isle divided between two races—one of giants, and another of dwarfs—the Kimos—about three feet high. These were always at war, until the former were victorious, at a place called Itapere, two leagues south-west of Fort Dauphin, where a pyramid of stones attests the alleged slaughter and destruction of the poor dwarfs.
The creek was also known to be the haunt of the famous freebooter, Captain Avery, an Englishman who gained vast plunder by his piracies against the emperors of Mogul and China, and who, about the latter year of Queen Anne's reign, lived in and about Madagascar, with the strange title of King of the Seas.
Not the least remarkable features of this creek were its enormous blocks of rock crystal, that sparkled in the sunshine with a thousand prisms of wonderful light and beauty. Trees surrounded it; the tall and straight voua-azigne; the bushy fouraka, distilling its green-coloured balsam; the wild fig, whose fruit yields a milky juice; the palm-tree, whose leaves are like feathers, and form roofing for wigwams; the ancient papyrus, the cotton and the nutmeg trees, all grew on the rocks; while betel, pepper, and tobacco were the weeds that grew among the jungle, where the puff adder—a reptile about a yard long—and other serpents lurked.
Just as the sun was rising in his tropical splendour from the sea, and through the opening to the eastward sent a glorious flush of light into the leafy recesses of the creek, Noah caught a couple of gallant turtles, each weighing nearly three hundred pounds.
After bringing them on board, he lowered them into the water by a line, tied, as sailors alone can tie, round them, and left them to paddle about, to swim, duck, or dive as they pleased, till required for the larder.
As for the one brought by Captain Puffadder, he flatly refused to kill it till sunset, on the plea that "a turtle never dies till the sun goes down, that he warn't goin' to be so jolly cruel as to leave it a nole day in a nagony."
From the deck Ethel and Rose, with their opera-glasses, were never weary of watching all the strange trees, plants, birds, and insects that surrounded them; everything seemed novel, save the turtles, which, of course, were like those they had seen squattering in fish-tubs at home.
Prior to their appearance on deck, with the first peep of dawn, a long hose, water-casks, and so forth, had been put in operation, and thus, before noon, a sufficient supply of pure water had been pumped into the tank from a spring which flowed over a mass of crystal rock, and through the decayed trunk of a fallen tree, which formed a species of natural duct.
Morrison, Foster, and Noah Gawthrop then fell to work upon the starboard side of the fore-rigging; Phillips and Tom Bartelot on the other, and all proceeded to tar down, and in many places to rattle anew the shrouds, and various other repairs went on with rapidity; while the doctor and Morley, with a gun, went ashore, and ascended the rocks towards the summit of the cliff, which overhangs the entrance of the creek.