[Illustration: Hercules could leave the boat without much fear of detection.]
shore, and copal-trees, acacias with their stiff foliage, bauhinias clothed with lichen, fig-trees with their masses of pendant roots, and other trees of splendid growth rose to the height of a hundred feet, forming a shade which the rays of the sun utterly failed to penetrate.
Occasionally a wreath of creepers would form an arch from shore to shore, and on the 27th, to Jack's great delight, a group of monkeys was seen crossing one of these natural bridges, holding on most carefully by their tails, lest the aerial pathway should snap beneath their weight. These monkeys, belonging to a smaller kind of chimpanzee, which are known in Central Africa by the name of sokos, were hideous creatures with low foreheads, bright yellow faces, and long, upright ears; they herd in troops of about ten, bark like dogs, and are much dreaded by the natives on account of their alleged propensity to carry off young children; there is no telling what predatory designs they might have formed against Master Jack if they had spied him out, but Dick's artifice effectually screened him from their observation.
Twenty miles further on the canoe came to a sudden standstill.
"What's the matter now, captain?" cried Hercules from the stern.
"We have drifted on to a grass barrier, and there is no hope for it, we shall have to cut our way through," answered Dick.
"All right, I dare say we shall manage it," promptly replied Hercules, leaving his rudder to come in front.
The obstruction was formed by the interlacing of masses of the tough, glossy grass known by the name of tikatika, which, when compressed, affords a surface so compact and resisting that travellers have been known by means of it to cross rivers dry-footed. Splendid specimens of lotus plants had taken root amongst the vegetation.
As it was nearly dark, Hercules could leave the boat without much fear of detection, and so effectually did he wield his hatchet that, in two hours after the stoppage, the barrier was hewn asunder, and the light craft resumed the channel.
It must be owned that it was with a sense of reluctance that Benedict felt the boat was again beginning to move forward; the whole voyage appeared to him to be perfectly uninteresting and unnecessary; not a single insect had he observed since he left Kazonndé, and his most ardent wish was that he could return there and regain possession of his invaluable tin box. But an unlooked for gratification was in store for him.