He succeeded in breaking off a piece, which was of a deep orange-colour inside; he collected also, and deposited in his bag, some other pieces, of various forms and colours. These greatly enriched his collection; and, idle as he was, he did not complain of any difficulty in obtaining them. He had given his gun to Jack, who complained much of the ruggedness of our road. Our march was truly painful, and I repented more than once of having yielded to the idea; besides the misery of walking along these shelly rocks, which presented points like the sharp teeth of a saw, tearing our shoes and even our skin, the sea, in some of the lower places, was so high as to bar our passage, and we were obliged, in the interval between two waves, to rush across, with the water to our chins. We had some difficulty to avoid being carried away. I trembled especially for Jack; though small and light, he preferred facing the wave to avoiding it. I was several times obliged to catch hold of him, and narrowly escaped destruction along with him. Happily, our march was not above half a mile, and we gained the shore at last without any serious accident, but much fatigued and foot-sore; and we made a resolution never more to cross the coral reefs.
After dressing ourselves, resting, and taking a slight refreshment on the beach, we resumed our march more at our ease into the interior of the island; but though the long grass was not so sharp as the coral, it was almost as troublesome, twisting round our legs, and threatening to throw us down every step we took. Ernest, loaded with his bag of fragments of rock, coral, and zoophytes, had given his gun to Jack; and, fearing an accident among the long grass, I thought it prudent to discharge it. In order to profit by it, I fired at a little quadruped, about the size of a squirrel, and killed it. It appeared to me to be the animal called by naturalists the palm-squirrel, because it climbs the cocoa and date-palms, hooks itself by its tail, which is very long and flexible, to the upper branches, and feeds at pleasure on the fruit, of which it is very fond. We amused ourselves by details of the habits of this animal, occasionally separating to make more discoveries, but agreeing on a particular call, which was to assemble us when necessary,—a precaution by no means useless, as it turned out.
Fritz, with his head raised, went on examining all the trees, and occasionally giving a keen look after his gazelle. Ernest, stooping down, examined plants, insects, and, occasionally pursuing rare and beautiful butterflies, was filling his bag and plant-box with various curiosities. Jack, with his lasso in his hand, prepared himself to fling it round the legs of the first buffalo he met with, and was vexed that he did not see any. For my own part, I was engaged in surveying the chain of rocks, in order to discover that which contained the Grotto Ernestine. It was easy to recognize it, from its summit cleft in two; and I wished to ascertain, as nearly as possible, if the cleft extended to the base of the rock, as this would render our work much easier. This side of the island did not resemble that near the Great Bay, with which Jack and I had been so much charmed. The island was much narrower here, and instead of the wide plain, crossed by a river, divided by delightful woods, giving an idea of paradise on earth; we were journeying through a contracted valley, lying between the rocky wall which divided the island, and a chain of sandy hills, which hid the sea and sheltered the valley from the wind. Fritz and I ascended one of these hills, on which a few pines and broom were growing, and perceived beyond them a barren tract, stretching to the sea, where the coral reefs rose to the level of the water, and appeared to extend far into the sea. Any navigators, sailing along these shores, would pronounce the island inaccessible and entirely barren. This is not the fact; the grass is very thick, and the trees of noble growth; we found many unknown to us, some loaded with fruit; also, several beautiful shrubs covered with flowers; the dwarf orange-tree, the elegant melaleuca, the nutmeg-tree, and the Bengal rose blending its flowers with the fragrant jasmine. I should never finish, if I were to try and name all the plants found in this shady valley, which might be called the botanic garden of Nature. Ernest was in ecstasies; he wished to carry away everything, but he did not know how to dispose of them.
“Ah!” said he, “if only our grotto were open to this side!”
At this moment Fritz came running out of breath, crying out, “The bread-fruit tree! I have found the bread-fruit tree! Here is the fruit,—excellent, delicious bread. Taste it, father; here, Ernest; here, Jack;” and he gave us each a part of an oval fruit, about the size of an ordinary melon, which really seemed very good and nourishing.
“There are many of these trees,” continued he, “loaded with fruit. Would that we had our grotto opened, that we might collect a store of them, now that they are ripe.”
My boys pointed out to me exactly the situation of the grotto, judging from the rock above, and longed for their tools, that they might commence the opening directly. We proceeded to make our way through a border of trees and bushes, that separated us from the rock, that we might examine it, and judge of the difficulties of our undertaking. Jack preceded us, as usual, after giving Ernest his gun; Fritz followed him, and suddenly turning to me, said,—
“I believe kind Nature has saved us much trouble; the rock appears to be divided from top to bottom; at the foot I see a sort of cave, or grotto, already made.”
At this moment Jack uttered a piercing cry, and came running to us, his lasso in his hand: “Two monstrous beasts!” cried he. “Help! help!” We rushed forward, our guns ready, and saw at the entrance of the cave two large brown bears. The black bear, whose fur is most valued, is only found in cold and mountainous countries; but the brown prefers the south. It is a carnivorous animal, considered very ferocious. The black bear lives only on vegetables and honey. Of these, the one I judged to be the female seemed much irritated, uttering deep growls, and furiously gnashing her teeth. As I knew something of these animals, having met with them on the Alps, I remembered having heard that a sharp whistling terrifies and checks them. I therefore whistled as long and loudly as I could, and immediately saw the female retire backwards into the cave, while the male, raising himself on his hind legs, stood quite still, with his paws closed. My two elder sons fired into his breast: he fell down, but being only wounded, turned furiously on us. I fired a third shot at him, and finished him. We then hastened to load our guns again, to be ready to receive his companion. Jack wished to use his lasso; but I explained to him that the legs of the bear were too short and thick for such a measure to be successful. He related to us, that having entered the cave, he saw something moving at the bottom; he took up a stone, and threw it with all his strength at the object; immediately he heard a frightful growling, and saw two large beasts coming towards him; he had barely time to escape and call for help, and then to hide himself behind a tree. To save ourselves from the other bear, it was necessary that we should take some prompt measures; we therefore advanced, and formed a line of battle before the entrance of the cave, I then gave the word—Fire! and we all three fired off our pieces at the same moment. A ferocious roar made us hope the bullets had taken effect but to make sure, and to prevent the escape of the animal if it was still living, we gathered a large heap of dried branches and leaves before the opening, to which I set fire. As soon as it blazed, we saw by the light the bear laid motionless on its side, but it is well known that this animal is crafty enough sometimes to feign itself dead till its enemy approaches near enough to be in its power, when it seizes him in its enormous paws and strangles him. We took a lighted branch, and approached with great precaution. The cave did not extend far; the animal was lying on a heap of dried leaves prepared for its young ones. I ascertained that it was really dead. I then, with the assistance of my sons, drew it out of the cave which was too dark for work, and I wished to secure the rich and beautiful skins which might be useful to us in winter. We set to work, and, as the animals were still warm, we succeeded more easily than I could have expected, but the skins were so heavy it was almost impossible to remove them. We therefore left them in the cave, the bottom of which was sandy, closing the entrance with boughs that no animal might enter to devour them, and abandoned the two bodies, only regretting the abundance of fat which would have been useful for many domestic purposes.