"I expect to find a jaguar to-day," answered the hermit. "I saw him yesterday go down into the small valley in which my cows grow. I will show you my cows soon, Martin."
The hermit stopped short suddenly as he spoke, and pointed to a large bird, about fifty yards in advance of them. It seemed to bear a particular ill-will to a round rough stone which it pecked most energetically. After a few minutes the bird ceased its attacks and flew off; whereupon the rough stone opened itself out, and, running quickly away, burrowed into a little hole and disappeared!
"That is an armadillo," remarked the hermit, continuing to lead the way through the woods; "it is covered with a coat of mail, as you see; and when enemies come it rolls itself up like a ball and lies like a hard stone till they go away. But it has four little legs, and with them it burrows so quickly that we cannot dig it up, and must smoke it out of its hole,—which I do often, because it is very good to eat, as you very well know."
While they continued thus to walk through the woods conversing, Martin and Barney were again interested and amused by the immense number of brilliant parrots and toucans which swooped about, chattering from tree to tree, in large flocks. Sometimes thirty or forty of the latter would come screaming through the woods and settle upon the dark-green foliage of a coffee-tree; the effect of which was to give the tree the appearance of having been suddenly loaded with ripe golden fruit. Then the birds would catch sight of the travellers and fly screaming away, leaving the tree dark-green and fruitless as before. The little green parrots were the most outrageously noisy things that ever lived. Not content with screaming when they flew, they continued to shriek, apparently with delight, while they devoured the seeds of the gorgeous sun-flowers: and more than once Martin was prompted to scatter a handful of stones among them, as a hint to be less noisy; but this only made them worse,—like a bad baby, which, the more you tell it to be quiet, sets to work the more earnestly to increase and add to the vigour of its roaring. So Martin wisely let the parrots alone. They also startled, in passing through swampy places, several large blue herons, and long-legged cranes; and on many of the trees they observed the curious hanging nests of a bird, which the hermit told them was the large oriole. These nests hung in long strings from the tops of the palm-trees, and the birds were very actively employed moving about and chattering round their swinging villages: on seeing which Martin could not help remarking that it would astonish the colony not a little, if the top house were to give way and let all the mansions below come tumbling to the ground!
They were disappointed, however, in not seeing monkeys gambolling among the trees, as they had expected.
"Ah! my friends," said the hermit, "travellers in my country are very often disappointed. They come here expecting to see everything all at once; but although there are jaguars, and serpents, and bears, and monkeys, plenty of them, as your ears can tell you, these creatures keep out of the sight of man as much as possible. They won't come out of the woods and show themselves to please travellers! You have been very lucky since you arrived. Many travellers go about for months together and do not see half so much as you."
"That's thrue," observed Barney, with his head a little on one side, and his eyes cast up in a sort of meditative frown, as if he were engaged in subjecting the hermit's remarks to a process of severe philosophical contemplation; "but I would be very well plazed av the wild bastes would show themselves now and then, for—"
Martin Rattler burst into a loud laugh, for Barney's upward glance of contemplation was suddenly transformed into a gaze of intense astonishment, as he beheld the blue countenance of a large red monkey staring down upon him from amid the branches of an overhanging tree. The monkey's face expressed, if possible, greater surprise than that of the Irishman, and its mouth was partially open and thrust forward in a sort of threatening and inquiring manner. There seemed to be some bond of sympathy between the monkey and the man, for while its mouth opened his mouth opened too.
"A-a-a-a-a—ah!" exclaimed the monkey.
A facetious smile overspread Barney's face—"Och! be all manes; the same to you, kindly," said he, taking off his hat and making a low bow.