As they explored the bank farther, Jud noticed that Hen was constantly chewing the dark green leaves of the wild cinnamon, which grew abundantly and had a spicy, pleasant smell like the well-known bark of that name. Without saying anything to Hen, the old man picked several and sampled them. Unfortunately for him, it takes prolonged practice to be able to chew wild cinnamon with any degree of comfort. As the fragrant fiery juice touched Jud's tongue and gums he gasped, the tears ran from his eyes as if he had swallowed red pepper, and he spat out the burning leaves emphatically.
"You must have a leather-lined mouth," he remarked to the grinning negro.
A little later, Hen added insult to the injury of the old trapper. They had come to a small tree loaded down with little round, rosy, fruit.
"That what you need, Mars' Jud," Hen assured him.
Thinking that it was perhaps a smaller edition of the papaw tree, Jud trustingly sank his teeth into one of the little spheres, only to find it bitter as gall.
"What do you mean by tellin' me I need anything that tastes like that," he howled.
"I didn't say for you to eat it," laughed the black giant. "I say you needed it. That tree the soap-tree," and Hen pointed to Jud's grimy hands suggestively.
"I guess we all need it," interrupted Will, tactfully, before Jud could express his indignation further.
Picking handfuls of the little fruit, each one of the party dipped his hands into a pool near the river bank. The waxy surface of the rosy balls dissolved in a froth of lather which left their hands as clean and white as the best of soap could have done.
As the day waned and the coolness of the late afternoon stole through the heat, the montaria was again loosed from the bank. All that night, under the light of another glorious full moon, they traveled fast and far. At last, just as the sun rose, there sounded a distant boom. It became louder and louder until the air quivered and the dark surface of the river showed here and there flecks and blobs of foam. Then, as they swept around a bend in the black stream, there appeared before them a sight of unearthly beauty not seen of white men for twice two hundred years.