“True,—true,” said Trevannion. “It is the very thing for which we have been searching in vain,—some sort of timber that would carry its own weight in the water, and us beside. This dead manguba, as you call it, looks as if a ton would not sink it a quarter of an inch. It will certainly serve us for a raft. Give thanks to God, children; his hand is in this. It fills me with hope that we are yet to survive the perils through which we are passing, and that I shall live to see old England once more.”
No flock of jacanas ever created such a commotion among the leaves of the Victoria lily as was made at that moment. Like frail leaves the thick stems were struck aside by the arms of the swimmers, strengthened by the prospect of a speedy delivery from what but the moment before seemed extremest peril; and almost in a moment they were alongside the great trunk of the manguba, in earnest endeavour to get upon it.
Chapter Fifty Six.
The Sterculiads.
In their attempts at boarding they were as successful as they could have expected. The top of the gigantic log was full six feet above the surface of the water, and there were huge buttresses upon it—the shoulders spoken of by Munday—that rose several feet higher. By dint of hard climbing, however, all were at length safely landed.
After they had spent a few minutes in recovering breath, they began to look around them and examine their strange craft. It was, as the Indian had alleged, the trunk of a silk-cotton-tree, the famed Bombax of the American tropical forests,—found, though, in many different species, from Mexico to the mountains of Brazil. It is known as belonging to the order of the Sterculiads, which includes among its genera a great number of vegetable giants, among others the baobab of Africa, with a stem ninety feet in circumference, though the trunk is out of proportion to the other parts of the tree. The singular hand-plant of Mexico called Manita is a sterculiad, as are also the cotton-tree of India and the gum-tragacanth of Sierra Leone.
The bombax-trees of Tropical America are of several distinct species. They are usually called cotton or silk-cotton-trees, on account of the woolly or cottony stuff between the seeds and the outer capsules, which resemble those of the true cotton plant (Gossypium). They are noted for their great size and imposing appearance, more than for any useful properties. Several species of them, however, are not without a certain value. Bombax ceiba, and Bombax monguba, the monguba of the Amazon, are used for canoes, a single trunk sufficing to make a craft that will carry twenty hogsheads of sugar along with its crew of tapuyos. The peculiar lightness of the wood renders it serviceable for this purpose; and there is one species, the ochroma of the West Indies, so light as to have been substituted for cork-wood in the bottling of wines.
The silk or cotton obtained from the seed-pods, though apparently of an excellent quality, unfortunately cannot be well managed by the spinning-machine. It lacks adhesiveness, and does not form a thread that may be trusted. It is, however, extensively used for the stuffing of couches, cushions, and other articles of upholstery; and the Amazonian Indians employ it in feathering the arrows of their blow-guns, and for several other purposes.