I was a younger man by ten years than our friend, and, boylike, gloried in the opportunity; so we again began to scull along the creek, sheltered by the same umbrageous screen of mangroves, now so luxuriant that it shut out both sun and light as if it had been a continuous artificial arbour. I cannot describe the beauty and coolness of this shade—water clear and pellucid as crystal under foot; a long distinct view through forests of naked mangrove stems on each side, while aloft there was a perfect web of verdure resting on the trelliswork formed by the interlacing of their bows, which spread out in a delicious covering over the whole creek. We dislodged innumerable birds of every variety, from the tall floating ghostlike crane to the chattering paroquet; and more than one owl flitted away from us, and flew up through the branches, until the sun struck him, when, with a flaff and a rustling brush through the topmost leaves, he came down overhead like a shot; until, restored by the green twilight, he would recover himself, and once more sail away along the narrow creek, and disappear round the corner of it ahead of us. In one instance, a boy in the bow struck one down with a boat-hook, so that the bird fell against Lieutenant Sprawl's head as he sat in the stern-sheets of the boat ahead.
"Hillo, Brail, my man," quoth he, "where away—what are you after?"
This narrow canal was absolutely alive with fish—they surrounded us on all sides; and although we could discern some dark suspicious-looking figures at the bottom, which we conjectured to be alligators; still there was no perceptible motion amongst them, and we continued to pull quietly until the head-most boat took the ground for a moment, and the others closed upon her.
"What is that?" sung out old Bloody Politeful.
"Lord only knows," answered the midshipman beside him, as a loud snorting noise, approaching to a roar, a sound that hovered between the blowing of a whale and the bellowing of a bull half choked in a marsh, echoed along the green arch.
"Now, what customer can that be?" quoth your humble servant.
"A hippopotamus," said one of the launch's crew; and before we could hear any thing more, an animal, with a coarse black leather skin, and a most formidable head, about the size of a small Highland cow (it must have been but a young one), floundered down the creek past us, stirring up the mud as thick as tar all round about—but we had other work in hand, so he escaped without a shot. We pulled on, and presently the mangroves settled down right across the narrow creek, twisting their snake-like branches together into an impervious net. Ahead, our course was thus most effectually stopped by this ligneous portcullis, but close to the obstacle a small muddy path branched off to the right, and we determined to follow it.
It appeared a good deal poached, as if from the passing of a number of people recently along it; and we had not proceeded above twenty yards when we came upon a spare studding-sail boom, to which some heavy weight had been attached, for two slings were fastened round it, showing, by the straight and wire-like appearance of the rope, how severe the strain had been; the spar itself was broken in the midst, as if the weight attached to it had been more than it could bear.
"Aha," thought I, "we are getting near the earth of the fox any how—the scent is high."
We carried on. The path became more and more cut up, but no other evidences of our being on the proper trail occurred; and as we could not fall in with a tree tall enough to afford us a glimpse of the lay of the land about us, had we ascended it, we had no alternative but to stand on.